Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Rural District Councils (Salary Structure)

Mr. Ellis: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will seek powers to control the salary structure of rural district councils, and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Thomas): No, Sir. I believe that local government should continue to make its own arrangements to ensure that individual authorities adopt an appropriate salary structure.

Mr. Ellis: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell the House how many local authorities in Wales pay their officials salaries above the recommended maximum scales and, if there is a significant number, how meaningful does he believe the scales to be? Secondly, does he consider that the functions of officers in development areas where much industrial development has taken place merit differential awards?

Mr. Thomas: I could not without notice give the hon. Gentleman the figure for which he asked in the first part of his question. As he knows, under the 1933 Act local authorities are empowered to pay reasonable remuneration to officers. In 1948 a Local Authorities (Conditions of Service) Advisory Board was set up to co-ordinate matters. The question of the legality of salary increases is always one for the district auditor.

Planning Decisions

Sir A. Meyer: asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether, in considering representations submitted to him against

planning decisions taken by local planning authorities, he will take into account the extent to which individuals likely to be affected by those decisions have been consulted.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. David Gibson-Watt): Yes, Sir. However, my right hon. and learned Friend intervenes in decisions lawfully taken by local planning authorities only in exceptional circumstances.

Sir A. Meyer: Is my hon. Friend aware that if he were to reject a planning application sent to him on appeal purely on the grounds that there had been insufficient consultation with the individuals directly concerned he would do more to encourage the practice of consulting individuals than could be done by any other method?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: That may be. If my hon. Friend would care to write to me about any specific matter I should be happy to consider it. I think that he is referring to the case he mentioned in the Adjournment debate on Thursday evening. I will look at that.

Mr. George Thomas: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if local authorities would consult people whose lives will be affected by decisions but who do not know about planning applications even when they may be for properties next door to them, it would help a great deal to produce a better spirit?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: We are all in favour of as many people as possible knowing about planning permissions. As the right hon. Gentleman will have read from the Adjournment debate on Thursday evening, I went very fully into the whole subject.

Concessionary Fares

Mr. Coleman: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many representations he has had from local authorities in Wales concerning the need for a more uniform system of concessionary fares for retirement pensioners.

Mr. Peter Thomas: Six local authorities have written to me. These concessions are a matter of local discretion as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries explained in reply


to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) on 14th February.—[Vol. 831, c. 34.]

Mr. Coleman: Will the Secretary of State convey to his colleagues in this unwanted Government, sustained by Liberal votes, the feeling of many people at this disgraceful refusal to bring forward a uniform system of concessions for old-age pensioners' road and rail fares? Will he urge upon the Government the need to understand this situation since they completely failed to understand the miners? This is an urgent necessity.

Mr. Thomas: Concessionary fares are a matter for local experience and discretion. If there is a demand for uniformity it is open to local authorities to co-operate in achieving it.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: I fully accept my hon. Friend's plea for uniformity, but can the Secretary of State tell us what encouragement he has personally given to Welsh local authorities in this matter?

Mr. Thomas: The local authorities know full well that this is entirely a matter for their discretion. Many local authorities in Wales have exercised that discretion.

Mr. Fred Evans: Is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that there is considerable perturbation about the unevenness of services in general in Wales and about this in particular? If I may broaden the argument, will he—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman was unwise to give me notice. He may not broaden the argument.

Mr. Evans: Perhaps I can rephrase the question, Mr. Speaker. Is the Secretary of State of the opinion that it should be mandatory on local authorities to effect a common system throughout the country? Is he aware that many local authorities are thinking of asking that the cost of such a service should be met from central Government funds?

Mr. Thomas: I know that certain local authorities, and in particular the Folkestone Borough Council, have suggested that the cost should be met from central funds. However, present policies place the emphasis, in my view quite rightly, on local authority experience and discretion.

Public Buildings (Noise)

Mr. Carter-Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will insist on the implementation of undertakings given at public inquiries regarding the control of noise level in public buildings as a result of new road works; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Ellis: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it a condition of his approval of schemes for widening or diverting roads about which he holds public inquiries, that undertakings that the volume of noise in public buildings will be reduced are kept by those making them.

Mr. Peter Thomas: Undertakings given at public inquiries held under the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Acts are not legally enforceable unless they are embodied in the conditions of planning consent. But I would always expect public authorities and others to abide by undertakings given at such inquiries.

Mr. Carter-Jones: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his reply. Will he take it from me that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) and myself are particularly concerned about the manner in which public inquiries are conducted, both within the Principality and outside it? If specific undertakings are given to laymen at inquiries by legal experts and technical experts to keep down the volume of noise resulting from the works, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman use all the powers he possesses to ensure that they carry out their promises?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, certainly. My Department will do all that it can to ensure that undertakings given at an inquiry are carried out. However, they are legally enforceable only if they are made conditions of planning consent With regard to the matter with which I think the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) are concerned—the Wrexham ring road—they will know that no condition was attached to the consent other than that the work should start before 31st December, 1975. I understand, however, that discussions are proceeding which will have the effect of ensuring that the undertaking which was given is fulfilled.

Mr. Ellis: Is the Secretary of State aware that in several cases in which planning permission has been given the conditions about what should happen subsequent to the work having been done have not been carried out? Does he not think that there must be something sadly awry when this happens on an increasing scale?

Mr. Thomas: As I have said, I hope that when undertakings are given at a public inquiry they will be carried out, even though they may not be legally enforceable.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: With some reluctance, I ask the House to pass on from the topic of noise levels in public buildings.

Hospital Service (Shortage of Doctors)

Mr. Ifor Davies: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to deal with the shortage of doctors in the hospital service in Wales.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Welsh hospital authorities endeavour to fill vacancies by repeated advertisements and by offering part-time employment in hospitals to general practitioners and other doctors. An increase in the number of places in medical schools in Great Britain from 3,000 in 1971–72 to 4,100 by the late 1970s is planned, including a further expansion of the Welsh National School of Medicine.

Mr. Davies: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information. Is he aware that the hospital service in Wales would break down immediately were it not for the fact that about 500 doctors—approximately one-third of the total medical staff—are from overseas, which sustains the service? Is he further aware that there are vacancies for 90 doctors in Welsh hospitals? As there were 10 times more students applying for places in the Cardiff Medical School than were placed last year, will the hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State press with vigour for the implementation of the recommendation of the Royal Commission for an additional medical school in Wales to be sited at Swansea?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Having visited over 34 hospitals in Wales in the last two

years, I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about the contribution which overseas doctors are making to the National Health Service. I know about the hon. Gentleman's particular interest in the difficult question of the suggested Swansea Medical School. As he knows, this is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science—

Mr. George Thomas: And the Welsh Office.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to ask a supplementary question later. We have been in contact with the Department of Education and Science about this matter.

Mr. Alan Williams: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that as a result of an answer given a little while ago to the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) there is widespread feeling in South Wales that the question of siting an additional medical school at Swansea has been further deferred? As the Minister responsible for the National Health Service in Wales, will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there has been no slippage in the plan?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I cannot add to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) on 31st January on decisions about further medical school places. This matter must await a study of the need for more doctors in the country as a whole.

Mr. Gower: If my hon. Friend is to discuss this matter with the Secretary of State for Education and Science, will he take account of the fact that the proposition that there should be a medical school in Swansea has all-party support among Welsh Members and, I believe, support in the whole of Wales.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Yes. However, I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that the intake of the Welsh National School of Medicine increased from 70 to 105 in 1969 and is to be further increased from 105 to 150 in the near future.

European Economic Community

Mr. McBride: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on his examination of the effect on


the future of Wales of Great Britain's membership of the European Economic Community if the present member nations of the European Economic Community reach agreement on future economic and monetary union projects.

Mr. Peter Thomas: Participation by Her Majesty's Government in the progressive development of these policies in the Community will take account of all relevant considerations, including those relating to Wales.

Mr. McBride: First, is the Secretary of State aware that Welsh prospects will be severely injured if Britain becomes a member State of the European Economic Community and aligns herself with the Community's economic and social policies? Reports emanating from the Continent indicate that the E.E.C. partners differ over this question. Secondly, does he consider it right that, as will happen, we should delegate decisions for solving industrial disputes to an inter-governmental committee of the E.E.C.? Lastly, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider the effect of the importation into all these considerations of the fact that there are over 2 million unemployed in the Community? How will this matter affect Wales which has languished under Conservative rule with 56,000 unemployed, the highest figure for 25 years?

Mr. Peter Thomas: The hon. Gentleman's Question refers to the matter of
agreement on future economic and monetary union projects".
It is widely accepted in the Community that a major element in achieving closer economic and monetary harmonisation is the development of effective policies for its regions, and the existence of such policies would be one of the pre-conditions for a satisfactory final solution. That is where Welsh interests lie.

Sir A. Meyer: Without paying regard to the problem referred to by the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. McBride), may I ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether he will confirm that if the member States of the European Economic Community are able to agree on an expanded regional programme it will be of very considerable assistance to development projects in Wales?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I certainly agree with that.

Mr. George Thomas: If the E.E.C. countries agree, it will be the first time that they have agreed on any regional policy—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the right hon. Gentleman asking a question?

Mr. George Thomas: Yes, Mr. Speaker—with your co-operation. Is the Secretary of State aware that 29 out of the 36 Welsh Members of Parliament registered an opinion last week against Britain going into the Common Market?

Sir A. Meyer: How many believed it?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. George Thomas: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Secretary of State aware that the best thing he could do for Wales would be to continue the former regional policy which brought over 200 new factories to the Principality?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I am aware that many right hon. and hon. Welsh Members voted in favour—

Mr. George Thomas: Many?

Mr. Peter Thomas: Yes—of Britain's entry to the Common Market when the right hon. Gentleman's party was in office.

Housing Revenue Accounts

Mr. Roderick: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what estimate he has made of the surplus expected in the combined housing revenue accounts of all the local authorities in Wales in 1976.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Since this would be dependent on a number of as yet undetermined factors, no reliable estimate can be given. But if any such surplus does occur in 1976, I would not expect it to be significant.

Mr. Roderick: Is the Minister aware that the Housing Finance Bill anticipates such a surplus in that it makes provision about what is to happen to such a surplus? How does he justify handing over the use of this surplus to the Department of the Environment? Will he explain why it is that the better-off tenants of local authorities will be expected to help the poorer tenants in private


houses and local authority houses rather than the load be spread over the community as a whole?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I am sorry to say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not think he can have read the Bill. In answer to his question I would say that the undetermined factors to which I have referred include the level of fair rents, qualification for subsidy, the future house-building programme, and decisions by individual authorities on the future treatment of working balances.

Factory (Penygroes)

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what use he has made of his oversight powers for the purpose of securing a new tenant for the Government-built factory at Penygroes, Caernarvonshire.

Mr. Peter Thomas: The Department of Trade and Industry is making every possible effort to secure a new tenant. These efforts have my full support.

Mr. Roberts: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman enlarge a little on the strong efforts he is making to secure a new tenant for this factory? It would seem that very little has been done. Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the unemployment figure for the Caernarvonshire area has increased to 10 per cent., or 11 per cent. of the insured population, and that this district, which is supposed to be served by this factory, is particularly hard hit? Would he and his Department show a little more energy in pressing the claims of this factory and this district for employment?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, I am fully aware of the unemployment figures. I am fully aware of the problems of the Nantlle Valley and the fact that Penygroes was dependent very much on this factory, which was built in 1959, and the tenant of which went out of production in 1969. I am fully aware of the difficulties there are in attracting suitable tenants for this factory. The position is that nearly £20,000 is being spent by the Department of Trade and Industry on repairing and modernising this factory, and this work should be completed next month, when this factory should be a very attractive factory to a suitable tenant.

Hospital, Gurmos

Mr. Probert: asked the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects the final completion of the new hospital at Gurmos.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The anticipated completion date for the current phase, which will provide 340 beds, is July, 1975.

Mr. Probert: Without commenting upon the undesirability of the site at Gurmos, would the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he will do everything he possibly can to retain the two existing hospitals in the Gynon Valley which serve valley areas which are difficult distances from Gurmos itself?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I am certainly aware of the excellent work done by those hospitals and of the high regard in which they are held. Their future functions will be considered in relation to the needs of the area as a whole.

Young Workers (Employment Prospects)

Mr. Kinnock: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what correspondence he has received from the Institute of Careers Officers in Wales about employment prospects for young workers.

Mr. Peter Thomas: None since last September, when I had the pleasure of opening their annual conference at Swansea.

Mr. Kinnock: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman, like a lot of other people in Wales concerned about the employment prospects for young people, give attention to the comments made by the Institute of Careers Officers in the Document "People in Jobs" and take note of the great alarm and concern expressed in it that authority for the direction of new job places for youngsters should be wrested from the counties and put in the hands of the Secretary of State for Employment?

Mr. Thomas: Yes. These are very important questions, and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, discussions are at the moment going on with the local authorities and those interested in youth employment on this very matter.

Job Opportunities

Mr. Elystan Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what facilities are available to his Department to estimate the number of prospective job opportunities in Wales.

Mr. Peter Thomas: This is done by the Welsh Planning Board which is chaired by one of my officials and on which all departments in Wales concerned with employment are represented.

Mr. Morgan: Does the Secretary of State appreciate that his continued failure to give a reasonable amount of information concerning job opportunities is proving very frustrating for Welsh Members in seeking to analyse the value of certain Government policies? Is he saying that such studies are not made? Or is it that he has not the candour to tell the House exactly what the evaluations are?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I give the House such information as is available to me. I am satisfied that the information available to me, both from my own Department and from the other Departments concerned, enables me to have regard to up-to-date assessments of the current employment situation and future prospects, and, whenever I am asked, I give hon. Members and the House the information I have.

Mr. Alan Williams: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that if the present rate of decline of jobs in prospect continues the Department will not need a computer but merely the facility of the fingers of two hands to count the jobs in prospect? How does he explain the fact that in 1971, the first full year of the new Conservative Government, new industry coming to Wales was merely 40 per cent. of that in 1969, the last full year of the Labour Government?

Mr. Peter Thomas: The low figure for jobs in prospect during that time has reflected the unwillingness of industrialists, by reason of what had happened in the previous two or three years, to commit themselves to long-term investment. This is a position which we are seeking to put right.

Special Area Development Status

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what consideration he is now giving to the extension of special development area status to districts with high unemployment in Wales.

Mr. Peter Thomas: This is primarily a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry but I am in close touch with him.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Secretary of State aware that that is a very discouraging reply in view of his oversight responsibilities for this matter in Wales? Would he be good enough to tell the House now what criteria the Government require before they will extend special development area status to these districts of high unemployment? Is he aware that unemployment in my constituency is about 12 per cent. and that some additional incentives are required if there is to be any hope of industrial development in the future?

Mr. Thomas: Yes. The criteria which we apply are the same as those which were applied by our predecessors. Special development area status is being given to those areas with a high number of employed as well as a high percentage of unemployment and where basic industries are declining. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry told the House on 17th January that a study of regional policy is continuing, and these matters are being taken into account.

Mr. Hughes: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say when the study, of which we have heard a great deal during the past few weeks, is to be published?

Mr. Thomas: No. I could not say. We have to take into account many factors. My right hon. Friend has told the House that this study is being made. Matters such as those which the right hon. Gentleman raised are being considered.

Sir A. Meyer: Will my right hon. and learned Friend intensify the consideration which I know he has already been giving to the problems of areas in Wales which are excluded from all assisted status?

Mr. Thomas: I can certainly say "Yes" to that. I know that my hon. Friend will appreciate that it would be wrong to take decisions on the status of particular areas in isolation.

Mr. Kinnock: Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that the phrase "a high number" is about as scientifically useful as the phrase "a large hole"? Will he tell us what "high number" is used as the criterion in deciding when special development area status should be granted? The answer he has given is of no help to any hon. Member.

Mr. Thomas: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to await the outcome of the decisions which will be taken on the review which is taking place.

Nursery Education

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales (1) how many nursery school places he expects to approve for Wales for 1973;
(2) how many nursery school places he expects to approve for the constituency of East Flintshire in 1973.

Mr. Peter Thomas: Nursery places are provided at present under the Urban Aid Programme and I shall shortly be inviting proposals for phase 7 of this programme, which will include capital projects to be started in 1973–74.

Mr. Jones: Is the right hon. and learned Genetleman aware that the figures for the provision of nursery schooling in Wales are scandalously low? Has he no interest in the under-fives? Will he take an interest in the requirements of the large new housing estate in East Flintshire where there is not a single nursery school?

Mr. Thomas: The hon. Gentleman should not use the term "scandalously low", nor should he suggest that I have no interest in the under-fives. In 1971 I programmed 2,440 nursery places, four times as many places as in the previous 10 years, and in two years I have programmed seven times as many nursery places as the previous Administration did in six years. For the period 1970–72 I have programmed 400 nursery places in East Flintshire alone.

Cattle (Road Underpasses)

Sir A. Meyer: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is the average estimated cost of providing an underpass for cattle when a newly constructed dual carriageway divides a farm in two.

Mr. Peter Thomas: The cost will depend on site and other conditions but will normally lie in the range beween £5,000 and £20,000.

Sir A. Meyer: Will my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the range of costs indicated would be met many times over in the prevention of loss of life and damage to livestock which arise when cattle have to be driven across dual carriageways?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, Sir. When farms are severed by new roads it is standard practice to consider whether the two sections should be joined by an underpass or an over-bridge. I know of my hon. Friend's interest in this matter, because he wrote to me on behalf of his farmers, and I shall be replying to his letter very soon.

Handicapped Persons

Mr. Carter-Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give the number per 1,000 of registered physically handicapped persons in rank order for each local authority for the period 1965–66, 1966–67, 1967–68, 1968–69, 1969–70 and 1970–71.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I refer the hon. Member to the answers given to him on 15th March, 1971. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security said on 23rd November, 1971, it has become apparent that publication of figures in this form is liable to be misleading. My right hon. and learned Friend does not consider that he would be justified in supplying further figures as requested.—[Vol. 813, c. 255; Vol. 826, c. 320.]

Mr. Carter-Jones: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the figures which he gave me 12 months ago are misleading? Is he aware that they appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT and have not been withdrawn? Is he also aware of the significance of what he said? If we have an accountancy system, and local authorities have to account for the manner in


which their money is spent, surely it is a simple matter to extract the figures? Is he not hiding, shielding and protecting those local authorities who are not willing to implement the "Alf Morris" Act as this House intended?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The answer to the first and last of the four questions is "No". The answer to the second question is "Yes". The answer to the third question is that registration of the disabled is not a condition for the provision of a service, and local authorities adopt widely differing practices with regard to it. Registration is, therefore, no measure either of services or of incidence of handicap.

Llantrisant (New Town)

Mr. Probert: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is the present position of the proposals for a new town at Llantrisant.

Mr. Peter Thomas: I am considering the views which local authorities and other interested bodies have expressed on my proposals. I expect to make an announcement in the near future.

Mr. Probert: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that if his proposal for a new county of mid-Glamorgan becomes effective it is highly probable that that new county will give no support to a new town at Llantrisant? In view of this, will he now cancel any plans which are being considered by his Department and others and convert any public money saved thereby into improving the valley communities in East Glamorgan and West Monmouthshire?

Mr. Peter Thomas: The possible effect of local government reorganisation is one of the factors which I shall take into account in coming to my decision. I do not see any reason why the proposed mid-Glamorgan county should adversely affect my original proposal that there should be a new town at Llantrisant, but I will take into account all the representations which have been made to me and the consultations which have taken place.

Mr. George Thomas: Would not the Secretary of State be better advised to listen to my hon. Friend? If there is £300 million—or whatever the figure is—to be invested in this new town, would not that sum be better invested in the

Rhondda, Merthyr and Aberdare Valleys, to encourage them?

Mr. Peter Thomas: The right hon. Gentleman is right in suggesting that about £300 million of public and private money is expected to be spent over a period. Llantrisant is particularly well placed in relation to the largest concentrations of valley populations and should provide additional employment opportunities for people living in the valley, thereby ensuring continued use of existing social investment there.

Local Government Reorganisation (Swansea)

Mr. McBride: asked the Secretary of State for Wales to what extent he estimates the functions, in relation to housing, at present enjoyed by Swansea City Council, will be affected should the Housing Finance Bill become law.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Swansea City Council will continue to exercise its present housing functions and will also be given important new functions in the private housing sector.

Mr. McBride: Is the Minister aware that in this case he has not read the Bill? Is he also aware that all local authorities in Wales will have their rent-fixing powers usurped by the Government-appointed non-elected rent scrutiny boards, and that Swansea City Council, in company with others which do not impose a rent increase by 1st April, must impose by retrospective legislation a mandatory increase of £1 a week on all local authority houses in October? Is the Minister aware that the Housing Finance Bill in certain circumstances imposes fines on tenants, councillors and council officers and effectively removes housing control from democratically elected councillors in Swansea and all Wales?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The extensive housing functions now undertaken by local authorities will remain their responsibility in the future, and there is no proposal to alter this. Authorities will continue to be responsible for assessing the housing needs in their area and for taking steps to meet those needs.

Mr. Alan Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he now


proposes to hold a further meeting with Swansea City Council about his local government reform proposals.

Mr. Peter Thomas: I have already held one meeting with the city council. I do not think that a further meeting would produce any information not already available to me.

Mr. Williams: As my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Ifor Davies), my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. McBride) and I discovered when we met the Secretary of State last week that the adding of Gower to Swansea rests on two dubious points—the first being two words appearing in a set of minutes, which were not reported verbatim, of a meeting between the right hon. Gentleman and the council, this set of minutes having neither been seen nor corroborated by Swansea, and the second being a majority of three on the Gower R.D.C., which represents fewer than 20,000 people, the unanimous opposition of Swansea Council, which represents 180,000 people having been ignored—may I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to look again at his decision in the light of the evidence which I sent him subsequent to the meeting last week?

Mr. Thomas: The attitude of Swansea Council is, I believe, perfectly clear. The city council's first choice was that it should be the centre of a one-tier authority. Its second choice was that Swansea, within its present boundaries, should be a new district within the new county of West Glamorgan. When Swansea Council met me I was told that it would be prepared, as a third choice, to accept Gower, provided it was the whole of Gower. The Gower R.D.C., on the other hand, by a letter dated 26th May, told me that the council had approved a resolution unanimously to the effect that the whole of the R.D.C. of Gower should form part of the district forming Swansea.

Hospital (Caernarvon and Anglesey)

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what progress is being made in acquiring the land at Cil Melyn for the proposed new general hospital for Caernarvon and Anglesey.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I understand that the planning authorities are now pre

pared to issue a certificate of alternative development under the Land Compensation Act, 1961, for the whole of the site and the district valuer is proceeding with his negotiations for the acquisition on that basis.

Mr. Hughes: I am grateful in a limited sense to the Minister of State for that reply, but is he aware that there is considerable concern in North Wales about the delay in acquiring this land, and that the consultants and the nursing staff of the Caernarvon and Anglesey Infirmary are working under considerable difficulty? Is it still Government policy to commence work on this hospital in 1975?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Negotiations for the purchase of land are often protracted, especially when, as in this case, the land is in multi-ownership. On the question of time, I can give the right hon Gentleman the assurance that the planning of the new hospital is proceeding well and is in no way affected by the negotiations for the land.

Council Houses

Mr. Alan Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many council houses there are in Wales.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: It is estimated that there were 260,000 at the end of 1971.

Mr. Williams: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that a policy which deliberately imposes rent increases will inevitably force up the cost of living for people on low incomes, particularly in Wales, and will trigger off defensive wage claims? Will he therefore bear in mind that in the next year he may see many such claims in view of the Government's regressive rent legislation plus V.A.T.?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The hon. Gentleman's Question referred to the number of council houses in Wales and not to rents.

Mr. Kinnock: When the Minister's officials discuss the future of housing in Wales with local authorities and the question of rents comes up, do they tell those local authorities that in the event of their promising not to comply with the Housing Finance Bill until it becomes law, the withdrawal of subsidies and other finance is threatened in respect of the period before the Measure becomes law?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: That does not arise on this Question.

Mr. George Thomas: Answer.

Fluoridation

Mr. Gower: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many and what proportion of local authorities in Wales now add fluoride to public water supplies; and what advice he is giving to local authorities on this subject.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Of the 17 local health authorities in Wales, only Anglesey County Council provides fluoridated water. Some parts of Radnorshire and Breconshire receive fluoridated water from the Birmingham Aqueduct. Four other authorities are planning to fluoridate water in further areas. This subject was brought to the attention of local health authorities in 1969.

Mr. Gower: As successive Governments, Labour and Conservative, and successive Secretaries of State responsible for Health and Social Security have strongly supported the idea of adding fluoride, may I ask my hon. Friend to explain why there has been such a poor response from Welsh local authorities?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Government have no intention of introducing legislation on this issue. This must be a matter for local health authorities to decide. I would add only that the total number of people affected by authorities which will fluoridate their water will greatly increase under present plans.

Sir Elwyn Jones: Would the hon. Gentleman mind translating the word "fluoridate", which he has sought to pronounce, into English for the benefit of those who do not follow the Welsh language?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Speaking as one Welshman to another, I suggest that that is a legal matter.

House Purchase (Local Authority Advances)

Mr. Gower: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many local authorities in Wales now grant mortgage advances for house purchase; how many refuse all applications for such mortgage

advances; and what action he will take to encourage these local authorities to resume such advances.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: One hundred and fifty housing authorities and four county councils in Wales are normally prepared to make home loans. In only nine housing authority areas are such advances not generally available. All housing authorities which have not taken such action have already been asked to consider doing so.

Mr. Gower: Can the Minister confirm that in every case local authorities which perform this function can cover all their administrative expenses and are permitted a margin of, say, ½ per cent.? Does he expect that all local authorities will shortly be granting mortgages?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: As my hon. Friend knows, a number of authorities suspended their schemes when funds were restricted by the quota system imposed by the last Administration. My hon. Friend will be glad to know that Cardiff R.D.C., which lends for improvements and repairs but is not at present implementing the scheme which has been adopted for home loans, is in process of reviewing its policy.

Operation Eyesore

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what response he has had to his Circular 38/72 about operation eyesore.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The response to date has been most encouraging. More than 20 local authorities have already been in touch with the derelict land unit of the Welsh Office and these authorities have under consideration more than 100 schemes.

Mr. Edwards: Is my hon. Friend aware that his circular has been widely welcomed? May we have an indication of the types of scheme that will receive favourable consideration? Will he ask his right hon. and noble Friend to instruct the Ministry of Defence to clear away its mess before it leaves, so as to avoid creating fresh centres of dereliction?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The answer to the second part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question is "Yes". Examples


under the scheme are the planting of trees or grass seeding with the aim of improving the appearance of drab and unsightly areas, the clearing up of disused allotments, the clearing of debris from rivers and canals and the improving of river banks.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one eyesore in Wales needs removing but that the innate good manners of my hon. Friends prevent us from referring to Her Majesty's Government in such unsalubrious terms?

Government Factories (Designs)

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will ask the Welsh Council to consider whether the designs of Government factories are suitable for potential users in rural areas.

Mr. Peter Thomas: No, Sir. I do not think it would be appropriate to do so.

Mr. Edwards: While thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for that not very encouraging reply and while understanding the desirability of building factories that can be used for a wide variety of different occupants, may I ask whether he is aware that in many small rural towns and villages in Wales the need is for the type of factory with a low roof so that the building can be easily heated and can be used for assembly jobs? Will he consult his right hon. Friend at the Department of Trade and Industry on this matter?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, Sir. I have taken note of what my hon. Friend said and I will certainly bring his comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

Youth Employment Service

Mr. Roderick: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if, in the next Welsh Report, he will devote a larger section to the Youth Employment Service, because of the proposals in the paper, "People and Jobs".

Mr. Peter Thomas: I will bear this suggestion in mind.

Mr. Roderick: Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity to explain the advantages, if any, of taking the work of the Youth Employment Service away

from local education authorities and transferring it to the Department of Employment? Are not the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment satisfied with the degree of advice given by the service at present, or are they trying to blame the service for the present level of youth unemployment?

Mr. Thomas: The proposals contained in "People and Jobs" are somewhat more complicated than one would assume from what the hon. Gentleman said. These proposals are being discussed at present with the local authority associations.

Mr. Ifor Davies: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware of the dedicated service of many of these youth employment officers, who perform an essential service? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman do all he can to ensure their professional status?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, Sir.

Rent Rebate Schemes

Mr. Michael Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many housing authorities in Wales do not, at present, operate rent rebate schemes.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Housing authorities are not required to inform me whether or not they operate rent rebate schemes. At least 60 do and their schemes cover nearly 60 per cent. of local authority dwellings.

Mr. Roberts: Does my hon. Friend agree that those authorities which do not operate rent rebate schemes, many of them Socialist-controlled, should be encouraged to follow the example of the large county borough authorities?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Certainly the Cardiff City Council intends to begin operating a rent rebate scheme based on the prescribed model from April, 1972. It has already circulated its tenants to this effect, and I welcome its initiative in taking this step. This comes about as a result of the provisions of the Housing Finance Bill. The benefits of the rent rebate scheme will be available to all council tenants in Wales and not merely those now covered by existing schemes.

Mr. George Thomas: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that what the Government are doing is increasing the rents of our people as from 1st April, and that he would do far better to come clean about it?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I have said already to the right hon. Gentleman that this is the first Government to try to bring justice into rents in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAND REGISTRATION

Mr. Loughlin: asked the Attorney-General if he will state the areas in England and Wales, in the order of priorities, to which he intends to submit proposals to extend land registration and the dates on which the proposed orders will be tabled.

The Attorney-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson): It continues to be Government policy to extend the compulsory registration system to built-up areas before extending it to rural areas; but it is not practicable to predict when orders will be made.

Mr. Loughlin: How many orders have been made in the last six months and how many are likely to be made in the next six months? Is he aware that I am beginning to think, in the light of the number of answers to Questions that I have received on this subject, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is prepared to say anything but his prayers?

The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman will recollect that this process was set in train in 1964 and was proceeding well until 1968, at which date he was a member of the then Administration. Since then there has not been the progress which previously had been made. We now face a position, with the reorganisation of local government areas, which makes it impossible to forecast which area should be given priority; and until those radical changes in local government areas have been decided there will be a cut-across of the previous plans. However, it remains the policy of the Government, as I believe it was the policy of the Labour Government, to continue to deal first with the compulsory registration of built-up areas.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL INVESTORS GROUP

Mr. Pardoe: asked the Attorney-General when he expects to receive the report of the Director of Public Prosecutions about the International Investors Group or its subsidiaries.

The Attorney-General: An investigation into the affairs of the Group and its subsidiaries by the police and investigators of the Department of Trade and Industry, in consultation with counsel, is progressing. When these investigations have been completed, a report will be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions for his consideration.

Mr. Pardoe: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that the Director of Public Prosecutions has already, on the basis of a police inquiry report, stated his view that there is a prima facie case against the company and that a prosecution would be appropriate but that he has left it to the Department of Trade and Industry to initiate an action? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not think; in view of the somewhat embarrassing circumstances of this case, that he should himself initiate an action straight away?

The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman is wholly wrong on both the matters that he raised in his supplementary question. These matters are under investigation by the Department and by the police under the directions of their Standing Council. That report will be received by the Director of Public Prosecutions. He has not yet received it. When he does, he will decide whether to prosecute.

Oral Answers to Questions — LIBEL ACTIONS

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Attorney-General if he will introduce legislation to enable legal aid to be granted in libel actions.

The Attorney-General: Legal aid is available in libel actions only for defending a counter claim made in legally aided proceedings. The Legal Aid Advisory Committee, in its Seventeenth Annual Report, did not consider that legal aid should be extended to other proceedings for libel and I agree with that view.

Mr. Davis: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that reputations can be shattered by irresponsible actions on the part of the Press or the mass media acting without justification? Does not he think that a person who has inadequate financial resources is therefore put in a very real difficulty and unable to obtain legal redress? The Faulks Commission is at present considering the question of libel. Will not it investigate the question of legal aid as well?

The Attorney-General: The view has always been taken that legal aid was not appropriate in defamation proceedings. In the year 1972–73, it is estimated that legal aid will be running at a cost of about £19 million a year. In spite of the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, I do not feel that it is necessary to bring legal aid into defamation proceedings. Circumstances do not often arise in which there is a need for legal aid.

Sir Elwyn Jones: Is not the exclusion of libel from eligibility for legal aid illogical? I emphasise "libel". I do not embrace slander in this observation. Is there not a case for allowing legal aid for a citizen whose resources are so limited as to qualify him for legal aid and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis), said, whose reputation and prospects and whose whole career may have been damaged seriously by a libel made by one of the powerful information media?

The Attorney-General: It has never been the view that it is necessary, nor have there been many cases in which there has been a real requirement for legal aid to bring defamation proceedings which usually, if they are against a substantial defendant in libel proceedings, will lead to a settlement, an apology, and so on. Hitherto, it has not been thought that there is a real demand for legal aid for these proceedings.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my right hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that if he were ever to extend the legal aid scheme to cover supporting actions for libel, it would be essential that the scheme should also cover the award of full costs to successful defendants; otherwise another broad spectrum would be

put at the risk of being ruined, through no fault of their own?

The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend has referred to some of the complications and difficulties. There are also the administrative costs involved each time there is an application for legal aid. Many people might seek to get legal aid in these circumstances and have their applications rejected, thus increasing administrative costs.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Motor Industry (Exports)

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will make a statement on the effects, during the six months to the end of January, 1972, since July, 1971, of the Government's financial measures, on the sales of the motor industry overseas, and at home; and what is his estimate of the industry's further prospects.

The Minister for Aerospace (Mr. Frederick Corfield): Exports of cars in the period increased in number and value by 2½ and 11 per cent. respectively compared with a year earlier; commercial vehicle exports rose correspondingly by 7 and 19 per cent. Registrations of cars and commercial vehicles rose by 38 and 12 per cent. respectively on provisional estimates. Demand is expected to remain buoyant in 1972.

Sir G. Nabarro: While these figures are impressive and good, will my right hon. Friend direct his attention to the paradox that, the better the figures become, the greater unemployment in the West Midlands becomes, which is the hub of the motor industry? Therefore, will my right hon. Friend urge on the Chancellor of the Exchequer the need for further means to reduce that unemployment in his forthcoming Budget?

Mr. Corfield: It is clear that the expansion of the home market and the rising demand abroad give good prospects for exports and, therefore, for absorbing the unemployment to which my hon. Friend refers. No doubt my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will observe my hon. Friend's remarks.

Animal Skins (Imports)

Mr. Pardoe: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will now seek to introduce legislation to ban the import into Great Britain of the skins of the snow leopard, clouded leopard, tiger, La Plata otter, giant otter, leopard, and cheetah.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Anthony Grant): I am unable as yet to add anything to my reply on 25th January to the Question by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson).—[Vol. 829, c. 396.]

Mr. Pardoe: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the International Fur Trade Federation last year urged a voluntary ban on trading in the skins of all these animals and that, because London is the centre of the world's fur trade, legislation by this Government supporting this voluntary ban would be of enormous importance? If the hon. Gentleman cannot legislate, will he agree to inform those women who walk round with furs draped over them that many of the animals have had to be killed by thrusting red hot irons up their anuses?

Mr. Grant: It is not for me to advise people in that respect. I am entirely in sympathy, in principle, with the need for conservation, as the action which I took to preserve the vicuna indicates. The problem here is not one of legislation. It is one of making an order under the existing legislation, and the Customs have to be certain that they can enforce it. We have had evidence from the fur trade which has been very satisfactory, and we are taking it into consideration.

Sir Bernard Braine: Is not my hon. Friend aware of the widespread feeling in the country that trade in the skins of endangered species must be stopped by all Governments before the species disappear altogether, and that many of us feel that our Government should set an example?

Mr. Grant: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's observation. I want only to emphasise the need to ensure that the powers we take will be effective. This is what we are engaged in at the moment.

Mr. Lipton: Will it be possible to ban these imports if and when we join the Common Market?

Mr. Grant: This issue is not affected by entry into the Common Market. We can take the powers as soon as we are satisfied that Customs are able to enforce them.

Mr. Harold Lever: While the Minister is reflecting on this general question, will he at any rate take steps to remove such of these animals who found their way recently into the Department of Employment?

COAL INDUSTRY (WILBERFORCE REPORT)

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Carr): My Speaker, with your permission, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement about the coal industry and the Wilberforce Committee's Report.
The report of the court of inquiry into the coal dispute was received in the early hours of Friday morning. I am sure that the House will wish me to express its great appreciation of the speed and skill with which the court discharged its difficult task.
The court concluded that for a number of reasons which are exceptional to the mining industry—
and do not apply in industry generally"—
the miners at this particular time have a case for special treatment. The court in its recommendations distinguished two quite separate elements: first, the periodic increase in wages which is normal in all industries and for which it considered the National Coal Board's offers of 7 per cent. to 9 per cent. as perfectly fair; secondly, it recognised what the report calls "an adjustment factor" meaning that—
a time may come in any industry when a distortion or trend has to be recognised as due for correction".
The court was convinced that on this account the miners' claim
should be given exceptional national treatment
and that
a definite and substantial adjustment
in their wage levels was called for.
Taking both these factors into account, the court recommended a settlement over 16 months from 1st November, 1971, giving increases of £4.50 for face workers, £6 for other underground workers and £5 for surface workers. The court also recommended further negotiations on a number of other issues.
During the course of Friday there were further negotiations between the N.U.M. and the National Coal Board. A number of points within the framework of the Wilberforce Report and also an issue affecting subsidised transport arrangements were agreed, but the N.U.M. pressed for an increase of £1 over and above the increases recommended in the report for workers other than those at the face. The National Coal Board rejected this claim. Talks continued at 10 Downing Street, where the Prime Minister made it clear that the Government supported the board in rejecting the claim for the extra £1. In the event, the N.U.M. dropped this claim but negotiated a concession with the board related to the 5-day week bonus.
With the exception of this concession and that relating to subsidised transport, all the supplementary issues agreed between the board and the N.U.M. were either consequential on the Wilberforce recommendations or were matters which the report recommended should be settled by negotiation.
The union is now carrying out a ballot of its membership and has suspended picketing. It is expected that the ballot result will be known by next Friday. I am sure all sides of the House will join in hoping that the settlement will be endorsed.
The Wilberforce Report emphasises that inflation
presents a most serious threat to the standards of living of everyone".
It is, therefore, essential that the country as a whole, and in particular all concerned with pay negotiations, should accept that the level of the coal mining settlement is, as the Wilberforce Court explains, due to reasons which are exceptional and do not apply to industry generally. It will continue to be the Government's firm policy, in the interests of greater price stability for the whole community, that the overriding need is to ensure moderation in wage settlements.

Mr. Harold Lever: Although we must defer in the public interest the detailed examination and criticism of what has happened, may I take this opportunity of saying on behalf of the Labour Party that we earnestly hope that the settlement recommended by the mineworkers' leaders will be acceptd by their members and that we believe this to be the desire of the country generally?
Without wishing to undertake the duties of a debate may I put two questions to the Secretary of State? First, is he aware that, despite what he says at the conclusion of his statement to the effect that the Wilberforce award is no warrant for other people to escalate their claims based upon what the miners have been awarded, it is an implicit warrant for saying that the Government cannot evade their duty to examine all claims on their merits and not seek to escape their duty by applying in the public sector a blanket arithmetical norm?
Second, has the right hon. Gentleman now come to see that, if the Government in good time before the strike had shown one-half of the understanding and sympathy for the miners' grievances and cause that Wilberforce did in a few days, and offered perhaps even one-half of the money that Wilberforce offered, the country would not have been subjected to the losses and inconvenience of this strike and the miners and the mining industry would not have been similarly subjected to all the loss that has been occasioned?

Mr. Carr: On the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, I do not accept his premise for one moment. There could have been a court of inquiry at a considerably earlier stage had such a course not been most strongly objected to by the miners' union. As was shown, even at this late stage, it was not at all easy for the results of the report to be accepted; and I do not believe that there was a moment when either Mr. Gormley or Mr. Daly would have, or indeed could have, accepted a settlement at a much lower level. All this talk to the effect that a much lower level of offer would have settled this dispute at a much earlier date is nonsense and is known to be nonsense by anybody closely concerned with the circumstances of this dispute.
On the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, I am glad that he underlined the exceptional nature of the Wilberforce recommendations and that they can be no warrant for anything similar anywhere else. He would realise, if he would look at the figures, that he is wrong in believing that there has been any discrimination against the public sector. The indices of earnings and weekly and hourly wage rates published by my Department—I ask him to remember that at least 80 per cent. of the input into those indices is from the private sector—show that a dc-escalation, to use the jargon word, has been occurring in the private sector as well as in the public sector. Of course there have been exceptions—for example, Chrysler—but overall there has been a de-escalation as much in the private sector as in the public sector, and it is essential that that should be so.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Has my right hon. Friend made any representations to the National Union of Mineworkers that a full level of safety working in the collieries should be resumed immediately, even while the ballot is being held, so that the long-term damage to the industry and the loss of employment in the industry arising from this strike can at least be kept to the minimum?

Mr. Carr: This point was raised in our various talks on Friday, but it is now best to leave this sort of thing for the detailed arrangements between the National Coal Board and the union both at national and, probably even more important, at the various local levels.

Mr. Swain: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is the first time in history that a fair deal has been given to the workers in the public sector by any Government? Will he state why the Government did not enter into the negotiations at an earlier stage, and also whether the Government intend to underwrite the whole of the expense that has been inflicted—he has used the word "inflicted"—by Wilberforce and to finance the fringe benefits so ably negotiated by the National Coal Board on Friday?

Mr. Carr: It was made clear at a stage much earlier than Friday that any recommendation of the court of inquiry would be accepted by the National Coal Board,

and on Friday the Government specifically made clear that in one way and another it would be seen that the board could exercise that responsibility. As to how that is to be done and as to how much is done by prices and other methods is a subject which must be looked into very carefully.
As to the other part of the question, I do not think I can go all the way with the hon. Gentleman, but I believe he made an important point which the House would be wise to take on board. The miners always made it very clear to me, and I am sure to everybody else to whom they talked, that this very strong, bitter dispute was not a dispute of the winter of 1971–72 but a dispute arising from at least a decade of events.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: While I warmly endorse what the Wilberforce Inquiry Report states and what was stated by my right hon. Friend about the need for us all to have very much in mind the dangers of inflation, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he will give careful consideration to this point? In the light of the power workers' work-to-rule and the coal-mining dispute, we have now seen two instances where we have finished up with a court of inquiry under Lord Wilberforce. Is there not a very great danger, if we hope to get national stability—which we all yearn for—that unless we do give careful consideration to the adjustment factor right across the industry, we are likely to have a repetition of one after another of incidents of this sort, ending up with a court of inquiry? I do not ask for a definitive answer this afternoon, but I should like an assurance that my right hon. Friend will give careful consideration to this matter.

Mr. Carr: I think my hon. Friend has used some very important words. I think there must be a policy for stability, a stabilisation policy for prices. That is really what we are talking about. Of course, since last summer when, as a result of the grip which we had by then begun to get on the level of wage claims, the C.B.I. was able to take its price initiative, there have been discussions going on in the National Economic Development Council along these lines. I believe these are very important, and I very much hope that the events of the last few weeks will have given a greater sense of urgency to all the parties to this discussion in the


National Economic Development Council on this problem.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we would wish to be associated with his expression of gratitude to Lord Wilberforce and his colleagues, and wish to express the hope that these proposals will be accepted?
For the future, will the right hon. Gentleman agree that delay and insensitivity, followed by confrontation and then retreat, is bad economics for the country and bad politics?

Mr. Carr: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. May I say, with respect, that it is easy when one is not involved to express these general and desirable wishes, but it is a fact of life that at no stage in this dispute—alas, until a very late stage—was there any willingness for negotiation in the normal sense of the word. This was one of the difficulties, and, as the House will see, even as late as Friday and even after a report such as that produced by the Wilberforce Court of Inquiry it was still a matter of very great difficulty to get its acceptance without an even greater confrontation which would gravely have affected the whole national interest.

Mr. John Page: In view of the equivocal statement by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) this afternoon, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he remembers that on 8th February the right hon. Gentleman said that a favourable settlement in the case of the miners must not be used by any other union for a game of industrial leapfrog? Will my right hon. Friend continue to remind him of this on future occasions?

Mr. Carr: I welcome the statement which the right hon. Gentleman made in that debate. I am reminded that the right hon. Gentleman repeated it outside the House over the weekend. I think this is immensely important. What we are engaged in is not a battle against miners or against any other section. What we are engaged in is a battle against prices, and that is a battle for the whole community. I believe that everybody, including Her Majesty's Opposition and the trade unions, must come in and cooperate in this battle for the whole community against rising prices.

Mr. C. Pannell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his use of a military metaphor in connection with this subject was most unfortunate? If he is going to use military metaphors, it is obvious that he badly underestimated the strength of what he would call his enemy. Is he aware that we on these benches do not accept his statement? Is he further aware that we consider the Government's record and his record as one of missed opportunities, bungled undertakings and inept negotiations?

Mr. Carr: Let me repeat that my only enemy, the Government's only enemy and the community's only enemy is rising prices. That is the only enemy we are fighting. As the Labour Party knew quite well when it was in power, labour costs account for the bulk of the rising prices which the ordinary consumer has to pay. The Labour Government stated that in categorical terms in their last White Paper on this subject before they went to the country. That is the only enemy, and it is the enemy which we must all fight. I believe that those who do not join in that fight will find that the community is very much against them.

Sir G. Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend explain now and in the context of rising prices how this settlement involving an added cost of £100 million to the National Coal Board can he prevented from causing steel, gas, electricity and railways all to rise in sympathy with the coal award? Will he explain and emphasise that the only true bastion against rising prices in public industry is increased production?

Mr. Carr: On the last point of increased production, I would have added effective competition, which I still believe is the best safeguard for the community against prices.
On my hon. Friend's first point, he mentioned £100 million; I think the cost is probably £90 million rather than £100 million. It is, however, still a very large sum, and it will be very serious in its effect on the industry and on its prices over the years ahead.

Mr. Harper: May I refer the Minister to paragraph 54 on page 12 of the Wilberforce Report:
…pension provision and redundancy arrangements should be reviewed.


Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that after 50 years in the pits our miners get only 30s. maximum pension? What help are the Government prepared to give to set negotiations going in order to arrive at a satisfactory and realistic pension scheme?

Mr. Carr: If the hon. Gentleman were to consult the leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers, he would find, I think, that they were of opinion that their preliminary talks with the National Coal Board on all the matters mentioned by Wilberforce went as far as they could possibly have been expected to go at this stage, and they are regarding that progress as satisfactory.

Mr. Tapsell: May I confirm to my right hon. Friend that the considerable number of my constituents who live on small and relatively fixed incomes fear deeply that this settlement, however justified when taken in isolation, will, if not treated as a special case, prove a real personal disaster and tragedy to them? In order to prevent his happening, would it not be sensible for the Government now to see whether it is possible to set up rather more formalised machinery to deal with special cases in future?

Mr. Carr: It is not just a special case; it is a wholly exception case. [Laughter.] That is very important, and anyone who laughs at it had better think carefully about what he is laughing at. I refer my hon. Friend to what I said a few moments ago to my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) about the discussions which have been going on since last July within the National Economic Development Council. We must think carefully and have regard to the unfruitful and disappointing experience of succesive Governments in relation to attempts to control these matters through formal machinery and formal undertakings, above all when such undertakings are backed with statutory power. This is a matter of overall concern, and one must hope that if some good may come out of the last few weeks, it will be that all parties, the trade unions and everyone else, will now see that this is a more urgent matter than, perhaps, they have been prepared to recognise hitherto.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Reverting to the Secretary of State's reply to the first sup

plementary question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever), was the right hon. Gentleman seriously intending to suggest that a Wilberforce-type settlement, endorsed by the Government, would have been available to the miners three, four or five weeks ago without this strike? Second, as the right hon. Gentleman has constantly reiterated that the only enemy of the Government and the British people is inflation—which, in itself, will command widespread support—will he explain how valuable an auxiliary is the Housing Finance Bill under the direction of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment?

Mr. Carr: It would be wrong for me to go into the detailed arguments, but the whole purpose, or certainly one of the principal purposes, of the Housing Finance Bill is to give more help to the lower paid and less well off. That it will achieve. In so far as the Wilberforce recommendations, for example, are directed, above all, to helping people at the lower end of the scale, the Bill will assist that same purpose.
I come now to the right hon. Gentleman's first question. Although I cannot foretell what a court of inquiry appointed at any given time and entirely independent and unfettered would have reported, I am saying that the National Union of Mineworkers could most certainly have had a court of inquiry at an earlier stage had its opposition to it been less stringent than in fact it was; and that is not only my opinion about the stringency of the opposition, for it was exactly confirmed by Mr. Feather, too.

FUEL SUPPLIES

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. John Davies): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to make a statement on the subject of fuel supplies.
In my statement to the House last Thursday I stressed that in planning early further restrictions I was guided as a matter of caution by the assumption that there would be no early relief in the coal supply situation. That relief came, however, as a result of the agreements reached between the National Coal


Board and the National Union of Mineworkers in the night of Friday to Saturday last. The immediate effect was to withdraw the pickets which had achieved a substantial denial of coal and other essential supplies to the Central Electricity Generating Board. In addition, the economies achieved by the C.E.G.B. and the Scottish generating boards in their own systems, by the public in their splendid response to my appeal for restraint, and by industry and trade in coping with the enforced restrictions together added up to a better position than had been expected.
I came to the conclusion, therefore, on Saturday that we should be able to get by with the present level of restriction and that, subject to acceptance by the ballot of the recommendation of the N.U.M. leaders, there was every prospect of not needing to introduce still more rigorous cuts in electricity supply. In view of the importance of this decision to industrial planning, I made it known immediately.
We are now faced, subject still to the conclusion of the ballot, with the arduous task of rebuilding coal stocks and getting electricity supply back to normal. Every endeavour is being made by all concerned to achieve this end. This involves movement of coal both at generating stations and at pit-head into position to supplement electricity supply; it involves replenishing stocks of lighting-up oil and other essential supplies; it involves import of coal to help relieve the shortfall resulting both from the recent strike and from the previous overtime ban.
Despite all these efforts, it will be some weeks before the country is back to normal. Until then, power cuts will have to continue. Domestic coal stocks will need still to be distributed on the basis of the priorities already in force. The immediate priority is to get industry back into full production again as soon as possible, and this means some preference being given to this purpose over the householder. I renew my appeal to the public at large to co-operate as they have so willingly and successfully done already in getting back into our stride again by maintaining the strictest economy in their use of both electricity and coal.

Mr. Benn: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that statement. Obviously, we recognise that the postponement of further cuts must depend on the outcome of the ballot, but I wish to put to the Secretary of State, these more general questions. First, what is his estimate of how long it will be before the situation is back to normal? Second, can he yet give any estimate of the total cost of the strike in terms of day lost as a result of men being laid off, in addition to those on strike, and in terms of financial cost?
Third, what consultations has the Secretary of State had with both sides of industry about the best method of getting production back to its full level as soon as possible? Fourth, will he, as the Minister responsible, make it his business now to confer more personally with the trade unions, since his failure to meet the N.U.M. at any stage since he became Minister certainly contributed to the difficulties through which we have now been?

Mr. Davies: First, I think it is wise still to assume that we shall not be back to a strictly normal situation much before four weeks or so from now. This is the present estimate of the generating boards as to their likely ability to meet full load. I can make no estimate in terms of days lost or of the cost at this stage.
Now, the question of consultations. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there were discussions with both sides of industry last week relating to the proposed further cuts. At the end of last week, I was equally in touch to give notice that we would not now need to bring those restrictions into effect. The right hon. Gentleman reproaches me with inadequacy of consultation with the unions. Yet I am conscious of having had widespread consultations with unions involved in every single trade and industry in this country—either myself or my Ministers—over the past months. I do not, therefore, accept the right hon. Gentleman's criticism in that respect. Indeed. I doubt that additional consultation of the kind he suggests would have brought about any real change in the situation as we found it.

Sir D. Renton: Could my right hon. Friend forecast what is likely to happen


as a result of the letter—received by some of them this morning—sent to the 20,000 largest industrial consumers, who are asked to make cuts which seem to be quite separate from and over and above the cuts locally made as part of the block scheme of the Central Electricity Generating Board? Is there any hope of relaxation of the terms of that letter?

Mr. Davies: I think my right hon. and learned Friend is referring to a letter which will have been received in anticipation of further cuts which would otherwise have been applicable from next Wednesday. As I took steps to announce on Saturday, these further cuts will not now come into effect.

Mr. Concannon: Is the Secretary of State aware that he, the Secretary of State for Employment and the Prime Minister have through sheer incompetence and arrogance forced the miners into a six-week strike and forced this country into a period of economic stagnation—in wartime possibly we would have shot people for such a thing—and that the only honourable thing is for right hon. Gentlemen opposite to resign?

Mr. Davies: I regard that as a most immoderate, inaccurate and incompetent statement.

Mr. Hastings: In the event of any possible future threat to fuel supplies for power stations, do the Government now intend some review of the present law on picketing? What is to prevent the railwaymen or the engineers, or anyone else who can organise it, from making a beeline for the power stations on the precedent of the mineworkers simply because they see this as an effective stranglehold?

Mr. Davies: The picketing that has taken place during this strike has undoubtedly revealed a potential of interference with the life of the nation which few people anticipated. The question of action to try to provide some protection for the community against such picketing will have to be considered, but this is not a matter for me.

Mr. Frederick Lee: Would the Secretary of State agree that it is now essential that we should speedily know the financial position of the National Coal Board? Are the appropriate Government Depart

ments now convening in order to determine the extent of the write-off of dead capital which is absolutely essential?

Mr. Davies: Clearly, we shall have to consider the financial position of the National Coal Board in the aftermath of this damaging strike. This is a matter which will have to be taken fully into consideration in the near future.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: In the light of my right hon. Friend's reply to the last question, does he recall that 10 days ago my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment told the House that no Government had provided a subsidy for the settlement of an individual wage claim and that we should not start now? Can he assure the House that this remains the Government's policy?

Mr. Davies: In replying to the right hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Frederick Lee), I made a clear inference that the whole finances of the National Coal Board will have to be looked at in the light of the present situation.

Mr. Palmer: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, with all moderation, whether he is aware that his handling of the electricity supply situation has been much criticised in the electricity supply industry and in industry generally, particularly his failure to pay attention to warnings given to him in this House and elsewhere in plenty of time? Does he not agree that things were much better looked after when we had an independent Ministry of Power directly responsible to the House?

Mr. Davies: I have no experience within the House of an independent Ministry of Power responsible to the House and clearly, therefore, I cannot comment upon it. But I assure the hon. Gentleman that the information, advice, and warnings, to the degree that was apposite, given by the electricity authorities were always most carefully heeded and acted upon by the Government.

Mr. Emery: Would my right hon. Friend say more about the present financial structure? Many people outside the House are interpreting the Wilberforce Report as meaning that other public sectors, particularly the nationalised industries, can look to the Government to help finance wage claims. I hope that is not my right hon. Friend's view. Therefore will he ensure that the negotiations that


his Department will have with the National Coal Board are proceeded with in haste and a report made to this House as soon as possible in order that the whole financial position can be clearly understood?

Mr. Davies: Certainly, no time will be lost before proceeding to an examination of the National Coal Board's finances. Equally clearly, the Government's intention is to try to achieve the point at which these large organisations operate on clearly stated and adhered to objectives.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: As it is the declared policy of the Government to control prices as well as incomes, is the Secretary of State aware that where miners have allowed coal to go to those in urgent need there has been profiteering? Candles are being sold at 500 per cent. above their normal price. Can he give an assurance that he will take action now to stop this profiteering in the supply of candles, batteries and coal?

Mr. Davies: I shall certainly look into any cases brought to my notice but, surprisingly there has been none concerning the supply of coal.

Mr. Lewis: I will give the right hon. Gentleman some.

Mr. Skeet: In order to prevent one State industry from being unduly dependent upon another, will my right hon. Friend consider allowing the C.E.G.B. to burn natural gas in roughly the same proportions as is done in Holland and elsewhere in Europe?

Mr. Davies: The question of which basic fuel the C.E.G.B. and the other generating boards use is a matter for discussion between the boards and the Government. I will bear in mind all the various points made to me on this subject in formulating future policy.

Mr. Dalyell: Is the Secretary of State aware that on the question of picketing the Lord President of the Council gave an undertaking on Friday that certain events surrounding the imprisonment of my constituent, Mr. Graham Steel, area secretary of the N.U.M., and others at Longannet would be looked at by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Lord Advocate very quickly? Until this is done the situation in the Scottish coalfields will not be entirely happy.

Mr. Davies: This is a matter not for my attention but for that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

Mr. James Hamilton: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a personal statement about the events of last Thursday evening. While some Press reports of the incident may have been exaggerated, nevertheless if by any action I took I caused an affront to you, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Liberal Party and the House, I wish to apologise.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[12TH ALLOTTED DAY],—Considered.

CHRONICALLY SICK AND DISABLED PERSONS

Mr. Speaker: Before calling the hon. Lady the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) to move the Opposition Motion, I should inform the House that I have selected the Amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister and other right hon. Members.

4.9 p.m.

Dr. Shirley Summerskill: I beg to move,
That this House deplores the long delay in implementing important provisions of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, the restrictive rules of entitlement to the attendance allowance, and the continuing lack of provision for the chronically sick and disabled.
We are moving this Motion not to seek party gain but in order to shed light on the inertia of the Government concerning the chronically sick and disabled. It is not enough that there should be general agreement about what should be done for the disabled. A sense of purpose and positive action are needed, and these we have not had during the 19 long months that the Government have been in power. This is what we are debating today.
A recent Government social survey on the handicapped and impaired in Great Britain revealed a grave situation. Even in 1968–69 35–40 per cent. of the handicapped were in receipt of supplementary benefit, and on the whole their incomes were lower than for the general population. Over 12 per cent. of the housebound living alone had no telephone. and only 5 per cent. of the handicapped were living in purpose-built accommodation.
It is well-known now that there are 3 million people in Britain who are handicapped in one way or another. Of these, 1·2 million are very severely disabled, severely disabled or appreciably handicapped. One million of them are over 50. Many thousands of families are struggling to help them.
We do not want any more surveys. We now want positive action. It was to help such people to be more independent, more mobile and less lonely that the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act was piloted through the last Parliament. It was a proud achievement of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris). The Act was urgently needed to deal with a serious situation. It has often been said that we have a first-class health service for acute illness but that it is deficient in coping with chronic sickness and disability. We are examining this afternoon whether that Act has taken effect in practice. The Government have a duty to see that it is fully implemented locally. They cannot sit back and feel that they are relieved of responsibility now that the Act is on the Statute Book. The Act imposes a statutory duty on local authorities to find out how many chronically sick and disabled people are living in their areas and to determine what services they need; they have an obligation to ensure that the disabled know about these services and that they are provided with them.
I should like the Secretary of State to clarify the Government's attitude to registration of the disabled and chronically sick. His attitude has been ambiguous. We should like to know whether he considers it an expensive and time-consuming exercise, whether he considers registration unnecessary, whether he considers that the disabled and chronically sick do not wish to be registered, or whether all three descriptions apply to his attitude.
We appreciate that a register of the disabled is not a requirement of the Act, but many hon. Members, myself included, feel that keeping such a register indicates the conscientiousness of a local authority in applying the Act, and I consider it indispensable to efficient implementation of the Act. Failure to keep a register can be used to cover up inefficiency. If local authorities are given the impression that they do not have to have a register, there is no deterrent to such inefficiency.
I appreciate the confidentiality aspect, the voluntary aspect, which must be retained, but the disabled and the chronic sick by their very nature are not always able or willing to seek out help. The whole point of the Act is that we go to


the disabled and the chronically sick and offer them help, and we cannot do that without some register or identification. We already have registers for the blind and the deaf, and we do not consider that that is interfering with their liberty or confidentiality. We know that it is essential if we are to give efficient help. General practitioners already have records of their chronic sick and disabled. That is not regarded as interfering with their confidentiality.
Yet when the right hon. Gentleman was asked as recently as last November what further steps he intended to take to ensure that all local authorities which had not yet done so proceeded to the speedy preparation of registers of local disabled persons, his reply was that all the responsible local authorities already had such registers. That implied that those which have not got such registers are irresponsible local authorities, and that is what we are concerned with. We are concerned with the lazy local authorities, the under-staffed local authorities, the mean local authorities. Every hon. Member knows that there are many such authorities.
What steps is the right hon. Gentleman taking to enforce the Act and ensure that local authorities do not make excuses not to carry out their obligations? We should like to see him exerting every possible pressure, giving every possible form of guidance and help to errant local authorities. Circulars and leaflets are not enough. They have been distributed in abundance. It would be admirable if the Act could be advertised with the same zest as that with which the Government advertise the family income supplement or pensions for the over-80s, on television and in magazines and newspapers, circulating G.P.s, local authorities, clergymen, dentists and the disabled themselves, everyone they can possibly contact.
We all know that there are striking disparities in local responses to the obligations imposed by the Act. Some authorities are moving slowly; some are not moving at all. Several councils have told disabled inquirers that they are simply not operating the Act. Some give excuses like finance and local staff shortages.
Which? magazine discovered in a remarkable analysis at the end of last

year that 66 per cent. of the disabled were not registered with their local authorities and were unaware of the services which the councils offered free. Yet 93 per cent. of those people were in touch with their local doctors, who could assist with compiling registers. Harrow, Ealing, Liverpool and Manchester are a few examples of local authorities that are making active and successful efforts to implement the Act, to inform the disabled of their rights and to provide the services to which they have a right. We want to see the Government ensuring as a positive duty that local authorities large and small, rich and poor, Labour and Conservative controlled, are actively engaged in carrying out the provisions of the Act.
The Government have specifically refused, for reasons best known to themselves, to reveal the number per thousand of registered physically handicapped for each local authority. The Minister's reply to a request for that information in a Question was that since registration was no measure either of services provided or of the incidence of handicap, and the practice of local authorities with regard to registration therefore varied widely, the publication of the figures requested was liable to be misleading, and he would not be justified in giving them. By not giving them, the right hon. Gentleman is himself being misleading because failure to give them is interpreted as a concealment of figures that people would like to know. If such figures are not revealed, some authorities can conceal their inactivity behind them. Surely, if there is any misleading information it can be explained and the misunderstanding removed?

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: On the question of registration, is the hon. Lady suggesting that it is the doctors who should inform the local authorities, and that they have a duty to do so, in order to compile the register, or does she say that local authorities should ask the doctors for information? It matters from the point of view of the doctor's workload which way round the hon. Lady puts it.

Dr. Summerskill: I suggest that there should be mutual co-operation. With the patient's permission and agreement, of course—which is important—the doctor could give information to the local


authority, and the local authority should make every effort to get it from the doctor. Obviously, there would have to be mutual co-operation.

Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: Is my hon. Friend aware that 12 months ago, almost to the day, I received this very information from the right hon. Gentleman and that it was classified in numerical order? I am now being told that the information is misleading. If it is misleading, ought not the House to have been told? Has not the right hon. Gentleman been subjected to great pressures from had local authorities to get him not to give this information in future?

Dr. Summerskill: I think that the right hon. Gentleman will take that point, and we hope that he will answer it. We appreciate that there are difficulties, and we hope that he will have some suggestions to make concerning these difficulties and something positive to say on the policy he puts forward. I mentioned that recalcitrant local authorities have been known to offer financial difficulties as their excuse, but it is strange that other local authorities do not have financial difficulties as an excuse. There is a wide variation.
No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will remind us that expenditure on the disabled will rise by 25 per cent. in the next few years, which should be reflected in the biennial rate support grant from the Treasury. Yet, as we know, rate support grant is calculated on a national basis. When councils get their apportioned share, they are not compelled to earmark money and spend 12½ per cent. or more on the disabled, so that facilities for the disabled will show wide variations. The extra money may go in one place on drains and libraries and in another place on the disabled. For instance, the social services committee of Cumberland County Council has just asked for another £20,000 to spend on telephones, television sets, aids and adaptations for the handicapped.
Meanwhile, the Government are unable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) has pointed out, to give the House figures of total expenditure by local authorities on services—indeed, we are told that these are not available. Here again, local authorities which want to can hide behind

unavailable figures, and their apathy will remain undetected. Yet in the long run the economy can benefit from efficient implementation of the Act because caring for patients in hospitals and institutions is a higher cost to public funds than caring for them in their own homes.
There should be effective co-ordination, too, between the many Government Departments involved, with the Department of Health and Social Security given the ultimate responsibility of overseeing the implementation of the Act. It is a complex task to supervise an Act which, as well as amending 39 other Acts, makes provision where previously there was no legislation. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could consider the appointment of an Ombudsman for the disabled, who could investigate local complaints, but we realise that he is thinking day and night about the appointment of an Ombudsman for other parts of the National Health Service and we do not want to add to his contemplation of that matter.
We would also like to see greater co-ordination between the voluntary organisations, on which the Government rely greatly for the implementation of the Act. We want to see them in far better and more efficient liaison with the local authorities than many of them are at present. Many voluntary organisations have great pride, and they like to feel that they can stand on their own feet, but it is essential that they should cooperate with the local authorities.
I come now to the question of the attendance allowance. The right hon. Gentleman is well aware, from the Parliamentary Questions he is asked, of the dissatisfaction among hon. Members on both sides of the House about the criteria of eligibility for the allowance. These criteria are far too rigid, in that the disabled person must require not only attention throughout the day but also prolonged or repeated attention during the night. Again and again it is being revealed that patients are drugged at night so that relatives can get some sleep. They are then disqualified from receiving the allowance. Is this not a totally discriminatory, unrealistic and, indeed, inhumane way of looking at these cases? Not only that, but it is economically unsound, because the present criteria prevent many able-bodied men and women from going to work, because they


are house-bound and unable to qualify for the allowance for disabled relatives.
The extent of the need for the attendance allowance was seriously underestimated by the Government when they set their target at 50,000 attendance allowances. I do not blame the Government for that. They now discover that over 95,000 people have applied.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): One hundred and thirty thousand have applied.

Dr. Summerskill: Even more. Such great demand only serves to emphasise the urgent need for help in caring for these people. It is interesting to contrast the response in applications for the attendance allowance with the response to the much heralded and much advertised family income supplement, when the Government greatly over-estimated the number of potential applicants. Although at the end of last year 44,000 attendance allowances had been paid, by 25th January this year as many as 38,000 had been rejected. Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why these applications were rejected? Why were only 69 per cent. of those who applied for the allowance for looking after disabled adults successful? Were the other frivolous claims, or were they, as I believe is more likely, very hard-pressed disabled people who did not satisfy the strict statutory conditions for the present attendance allowance?
We ask the right hon. Gentleman to re-define and extend the qualifying conditions and broaden the scheme to include night or day attendance or both rather than restrict it to night and day attendance. This would entail a very simple alteration of the rules. If not, would the right hon. Gentleman consider a two-tier system whereby a person needing only day time or only night time attention would qualify for a portion of the allowance? This would involve up to 250,000 further disabled people—a clear indication of the need. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that this job must be tackled in stages. We suggest to him that the second stage has arrived. Mistakes must be admitted and progress made.
There are two other aspects of the attendance allowance that I ask the right

hon. Gentleman to consider. A high proportion of the applicants who apply for a review of the board's decisions are successful. I believe that it is as many as about 80 per cent. Does not this indicate some deficiency in the first selection procedure, and are not all these appeals, which number about 4,000 at the moment, an unnecessary administrative waste of time, trouble and expense? Will the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind the unfair situation which arises from varied standards of criteria applied by general practitioners to the attendance allowance in different areas of the country? Will he consider amending the form to cover all varieties of circumstances and permit far more information to be given about a particular case?
I should like the right hon. Gentleman to give careful consideration to the possibility of introducing a national disability income. Any disability or chronic illness makes living not only harder but more expensive. The disabled usually have low incomes if they go out to work, and they often need special food and special clothes. The Disablement Income Group advocates the introduction of a disability pension for all disabled men, women and children regardless of the cause of their disablement, not only men who have been injured in the war or at work. It would be similar to that already available in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, West Germany and France.
Medical science increasingly offers the prospect of prolonged disability as a substitute for death. Governments should ensure that the extra years are not accompanied by prolonged financial hardship. We know that the disabled do not ask for pity and sympathy, but they ask for and need practical help and assistance in the form of cash as well as care.
I know that every hon. Member would greatly welcome a statement from the right hon. Gentleman concerning the invalid vehicle service. This would increase the mobility of the disabled, and enable many to go out to work who now stay at home, and make it possible for a disabled person to take a friend or family out in the car. These seem very simple problems to solve. In an age which boasts the hovercraft and Concorde,


surely it is within the ingenuity of our scientists and engineers to design a range of safe, reliable, economic invalid cars with either three or four wheels.
I would not underestimate the need for housing for the disabled, and provision for ensuring that is contained in Section 3(1) of the Act. It is a shocking fact that thousands of disabled are now living in deficient, inappropriate accommodation with inaccessible rooms, outside lavatories and baths too low or too high. Yet disablement inevitably means struggling to cope within four walls most of the time, out of sight but, one hopes, not out of mind.
I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman's Department is co-operating with the Department of the Environment in a study to establish the extent to which the housing needs of the disabled person may best be met by adapting his existing dwelling, by providing him with a new house, or by providing him with a new dwelling especially designed for him. Could the Minister tell us when this important study will be completed, and would he assure us that it is not being used as an excuse for delay by local authorities and as an excuse for inactivity?
On this side of the House we must deplore the inflexible atitude of the Government to the problems of the chronically sick and disabled. I should like to explain in what way the attitude is inflexible, and I choose that word with great care. First, prescription charges for the chronically sick; "chronically sick" are words which defy definition, as the Government have found. If, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you have Parkinson's disease, or schizophrenia, or chronic bronchitis with asthma and you need a constant supply of prescriptions, you are not classified as chronically sick and you do not get exemption from prescription charges.

Mrs. Jill Knight (Birmingham, Egbaston): Would the hon. Lady tell the House whether this was exactly the situation under the previous Government?

Dr. Summerskill: Yes, it was, but that does not make it any better for the people with Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, or chronic bronchitis.
It is an inflexible attitude that can keep one list of one type of disease and patients having exemption from prescription charges and another list of those who are not exempt. The Government have undertaken to review this situation with the B.M.A., and I shall be interested to know the results of those discussions.
Secondly, there is inflexibility in the allocation of the attendance allowance. Here, too, some disabled may have it if they satisfy certain criteria while others may not because they do not satisfy certain criteria. With invalid vehicles there are the haves and the have-nots among the disabled. I do not sympathise with the type of means test which involves money but the extent to which a person is ill. It is a divisive policy; it creates two nations among the sick and disabled.
I have tried to deal broadly with the features of the Act, but I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House will be dealing more specifically with their own constituency cases, of which there are thousands, and more specifically with different sections. Tonight we shall vote on the Motion because the chronically sick and disabled and their relatives and friends who care for them have no trade union, no power to strike, but look to Parliament to represent their interests. We believe that the Government have not exerted themselves to ensure the legal rights of the disabled and that inertia has been responsible for a continued lack of provision for millions of chronically sick and disabled people.

4.37 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'welcomes the present Government's introduction of the Attendance Allowance for the very severely disabled, the invalidity benefits for the chronic sick and their families and the rising provision for buildings and for the facilities and aids for the disabled; and commends the Government's realism in encouraging local authorities to implement the provisions of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act as fast as increasing staff and increasing resources allow'.
The hon. Lady the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) is a very engaging person and a very engaging speaker, and if she had been truly angry,


I expect that she could have made a three-line speech. But the speech she has just made was not even an attempt to indict the Government for anything deserving a three-line Whip tonight. Nevertheless, the Government are given an opportunity, which I for one warmly welcome, to explain the progress that has been made and the vast range of things still to be done in connection with the disabled.
The hon. Lady's criticism would have been a little more morally effective if she had been able to point to six years of progress under the late Labour Government. In fact, except for one moment when her argument was entirely punctured by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), she failed to refer to any activity under the Labour Government. She mentioned the Private Member's Bill, but no Government legislation, no extra services and no specific benefits for the disabled. I shall not in general make a party speech, but that needs to be put on the record.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: Before the right hon. Gentleman becomes even less partisan, may I point out that the Labour Government warmly welcomed my hon. Friend's Bill and gave it time and a Money Resolution, thus putting the authority and the finances of the Government behind it?

Sir K. Joseph: The right hon. Lady knows that that is playing with words. There was not a penny of extra money connected with the Bill, and we know it. But I do not want to pursue that. It needed to be put on the record as a background to the hon. Lady's speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because the hon. Lady failed candidly to reveal it as I for one would have revealed it in her position.
The hon. Lady made a broad indictment that there was a continuing lack of provision for the chronically sick and disabled under the present Government. I propose to deal far more widely with the conditions of the disabled than did the hon. Lady in her entirely justifiable and legitimately selective manner. Both sides must start with the following background.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the question of finance,

does he recall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) was in correspondence with him on that point? The Money Resolution provided Parliament's support for the spending of money on the Act. He will do a major disservice if he keeps on saying that there is not one penny associated with it.

Sir K. Joseph: The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) is unable to show that any extra money was voted for this Act. A Money Resolution was passed. That simply entitled local authorities to spend money on the purposes of the Act, but no extra money was provided to enable them to do so, and the whole House knows that. I have said time and again from this Dispatch Box that until Megan du Boisson and Anne Armstrong awakened the conscience of Parliament as a whole no Government began to face up to the problem. In the 1966 General Election the Tory Party had one reference in its manifesto to the severely disabled and the Labour Party did not have a single one. It is only recently that the House and the country have woken up to the needs of this group, and there is no credit to be gained to either party through looking backwards.
I am glad that in her introductory remarks the hon. Lady emphasised the degree to which the disabled are elderly. The D.I.G. campaign, splendid and effective though it was, largely concentrated on the disabled of working age and disabled children. When Amelia Harris produced that monumental survey to which the hon. Lady referred, initiated by the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), it showed that two-thirds of the disabled—severely, very severely and appreciably disabled—are over 65 and one-third over 75. There has so far been no campaign for the elderly disabled, and yet they are just as poignant as the disabled of working age and disabled children. It is the Government's job to try to improve conditions for all. As the moment the disabled depend enormously upon themselves, their long-suffering families and neighbours. There is an infinite range of handicapped with needs requiring help and service.
The first subject with which I must deal is the difficult one to which the hon. Lady referred of identification and registration.


I very much welcomed the relatively objective manner in which she dealt with the subject. It is rather more complicated than hon. Members on either side appreciate. The background does not start with the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act but rather with Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948.
That Act imposes upon local authorities the obligation to bring help to those who were:
…substantially and permanently handicapped by illness, injury, or congenital deformity or such other disabilities as may be prescribed by the Minister.'
Later it lays down the obligation to maintain a classified register of persons to whom help under the section has been given. We have an obligation to help and to register those who are helped, but that is a register which will not include those who do not want to be registered, those who have not been helped, those who have not been identified. It is a limited register, not necessarily covering all who need help.
Now we look at the Act introduced as a result of the efforts of the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris)—the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. Section 1 of that Act lays upon local authorities a duty to inform themselves of the number of persons who require help because of disability or handicap. It is a very valuable Section, but it contains no requirement to register. Along come a number of hon. Members doing their duty and asking for details of registration and spending on registration. There has crept in a confusion between the overlapping requirements of Section 1 of the 1970 and Section 29 of the 1948 Act.
I propose to try to sort this out in as objective and effective a manner as I can. I am about to embark on consultations with all interested bodies, and I shall welcome individual discussions with hon. Members who wish to put their points of view to me so that I can give advice to local government about the statistics which successive Governments will require to monitor performance of policies for helping the disabled and seeing where further help may be needed. I hope that that objective statement of intention will be acceptable to hon. Members. In the meanwhile, I have to say

that statistics derived from the numbers registered under Section 29 of the 1948 Act as applied to the expenditure that can be identified under later Acts will not give a meaningful record of local authority performance.
I intend that there should be a meaningful record but I cannot promise that such a record will be available effectively before next year and the year after as a result of the improved statistics for which we shall be asking. In the light of that, I hope that the hon. Lady will allow me to carry on with the assurance that I shall be consulting all interested bodies and will gladly have individual talks with interested Members.
Hon. Members will be interested to know that a veritable fever of activity now characterises the social service departments of local authorities. Quite apart from the priorities that have to be given to those who need caring for as a result of the coal dispute, the departments have experienced an avalanche of demand for their services—in both the traditional needs and the newly identified needs that the last Government and this Government have exposed in connection with the mentally handicapped, mentally ill and physically disabled. The social service departments are coping with an almost overwhelming demand and are having to build up staff and expertise.
The House may like to have a few details of the sort of cases which the search to identify the handicapped under Section 1 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act has yielded. Here are four cases that demonstrate the benefit of the Section and the service which social service departments are offering. The first is of a 16-month-old child suffering from a double gangrene amputation after a spina bifida birth. This child was not known to the social service department until the search was undertaken. A mentally ill man, suffering from agoraphobia has been found. He had not gone out of his house for 17 years. The social service department is now helping him overcome his disability. A skilled engineer had contracted meningitis abroad and had become totally deaf and lost all his friends. He had become completely socially isolated, but has now been rescued from his isolation by the social service department and placed in work in a sheltered workshop. A man


who was deafened in the war and had reached such a desperate stage that he had thought of becoming a tramp was found by the department and is now organising an angling club and a rambling club and being assessed for sheltered work.

Mr. Carter-Jones: I must preface my intervention by saying that every time I have asked the Secretary of State for help it has been readily forthcoming. I could not have asked anyone for more help at any time. I freely pay that tribute to the right hon. Gentleman. He has just quoted four dramatic cases and has argued that the statistics may be misleading. He has referred to Amelia Harris. I am not concerned about whether the statistics are misleading. Amelia Harris is concerned with half a million very severely disabled people. I would rather have misleading statistics of identification than the four cases, genuine though they may be, and one of which will not come under Amelia Harris' jurisdiction because the child concerned is under 16 years of age—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will remember that a number of hon. Members wish to speak.

Sir K. Joseph: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. What I object to is the use of statistics with a limited validity to indict local authorities which perhaps are performing as well as they can.
I move to the question of the broader services. If we can get it from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is far easier to distribute money than it is to provide services. Therefore, I deal first with the question of cash benefits.
The attendance allowance has been far more effective in its first stage than we expected. We expected to achieve about a 50 per cent. success rate—that is, awards totalling about 50 per cent. of applications—and we expected the awards to total 50,000. We started on the basis of a £4 tax-free, in general disregarded, weekly benefit. In fact, with 2,000 claims a week still coming in, we have made 74,000 awards and achieved a 63 per cent. success rate. The benefit is now £4.80 a week, and instead of spending the expected £10 million a year we shall be spending £20 million a year.
The hon. Lady the Member for Halifax said that we have a far too narrow-eligibility test. I must throw her words back in her teeth. It is the only practical eligibility test for the first stage because it identifies the most severely disabled—those most urgently in need of help. It is precisely the same—word for word—eligibility test as that which the Labour Government put in their National Superannuation and Social Insurance Bill, which fell at the election.
I have said, and I repeat, that the Government intend to extend the attendance allowance as soon as they can, subject to the financial and administrative implications. Meanwhile, I hope that the House will relish the relative effectiveness of this award, which has already been made to 74,000 people—and there will be many more awards since not all the claims have been dealt with.
I turn to a matter which the hon. Lady the Member for Halifax did not mention—the invalidity package. In 1970 the Government introduced the first set of systematic benefits for the chronically sick—for those who had been sick for more than six months. There are benefits for the sick wage earner, depending on the age at which he first became chronically sick. There is a much increased disregard for an earning wife, which is benefiting no fewer than 13,000 earning wives of invalidity pensioners. There is a sharply increased benefit for the dependent children of those receiving invalidity benefit. Over 200,000 households are receiving benefit totally over £18 million a year.
The result of these two packages together—the attendance allowance and invalidity benefit—is that this year £40 million more will be paid to the disabled than was paid in the Labour Government's last year of office. That is a significant improvement, even if there is much more to do.

Mrs. Castle: If we are to tackle these problems, is it not ridiculous that there should be anomalies such as that which arose in the case which I sent to the right hon. Gentleman recently concerning one of my constituents who qualified for invalidity benefit and promptly lost his entitlement to free prescriptions? Is it not time these problems were considered more comprehensively?

Sir K. Joseph: I will look into that case. I will find out from the right hon. Lady about it, but it sounds a very special case.

Mrs. Castle: The right hon. Gentleman has sent me a reply.

Sir K. Joseph: I will look into the case again. It seems a very odd and unusual case.
What has been done is not enough. I am much stirred by the point made by the hon. Lady the Member for Halifax that many Western European Governments seem to be able to provide for the partially disabled and the disabled housewife in a way which we have never found practicable. That is why I undertook last year to send a mission to those countries to find out how they did it. That mission has returned, and I hope to have its report in a few months, and see what the Government can learn from its discoveries.
I turn to the question of services for the disabled. First, I should like to deal with the local authority finance question. The Government have made provision for an average annual growth in revenue spending by local authorities on the health and personal social services of over 7 per cent. in England and Wales during the five years to 1975–76. The comparable figure in real terms for the last five years of the Labour Government's term of office was under 5 per cent. Therefore, there has been a decisive real improvement.
Taking the personal social services by themselves, revenue expenditure by local authorities in England and Wales is planned to grow by an average annual rate of 9 per cent. in real terms between this year and 1975–76. Annual capital expenditure on the personal social services is planned to grow from £41 million in 1971–72 to nearly £65 million in 1975–76. With regard to local authority welfare services for the handicapped, the forecasts of relevant expenditure made in the rate support grant negotiations for the current two years provide for annual growth rates of about 12 per cent. in real terms.
There is, therefore, finance for improved services, but there is nothing like enough for all that needs to be done. As the hon. Lady the Member for Halifax freely conceded, there is a 25 per cent. growth rate in real terms over the current

two years. I have no reason to think that local authorities generally are not playing fair by the personal social services. I believe that finance committees and finance chairmen and treasurers are co-operating very closely with their social service committee chairmen and directors. There may be exceptions, but in general the reports which I have had are of very fair play by these nationally suggested standards. But I admit that an enormous amount more will need to be done to ensure that the services meet the identifiable needs.

Dr. Summerskill: I believe that a survey of London boroughs revealed by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) showed that 10 out of 32 of the boroughs did not intend to implement the Act.

Sir K. Joseph: Which Act?

Dr. Summerskill: The Act we are discussing.

Sir K. Joseph: I beg the hon. Lady's pardon, but we are not discussing the Act. She has indicted the Government for, as she says, a continued lack of services for the chronically sick and disabled. Across the whole front of services—and I shall deal with many others which the hon. Lady has not mentioned—the finance is available for improvements. For instance, in the vital domiciliary services provided by local authorities, the number of home helps was increased by nearly 8 per cent. last year. In the equally vital home nursing service, the numbers in effective action were up by over 5 per cent. in the last year. This means potentially better services for the disabled and the elderly and all those people who need attention at home.
I should like to tell the House about some improvements on the hospital side for the disabled. For the first time the Government have approved finance for no fewer than 38 new assessment centres for children's handicaps at a total cost of over £800,000. This is only the beginning of what needs to be done. The House already knows that about £5 million has been set aside by the Government to increase the number of units for the younger chronic sick. We have doubled over three years the number of places for the younger chronic sick in suitable hospital units. At present the


Government are engaged in a comprehensive review of services to the blind, and for the deaf.
We recently announced our acknowledgment of the Reid Report on epilepsy. There is to be a national conference, called by me, this July for those concerned with epilepsy. We have agreed to finance the cost of three special centres for epileptic cases. My Department has made grants of £10,000 to the British Epilepsy Association both last year and for the current year.
The House may have seen that in a recent speech I drew attention to the whole range of what I called afflictions which, in medical terms, have not yet been able to be cured. These are borne, above all, by the elderly, and are afflictions such as arthritis. There is an enormous difference in the individual cases, dependent upon the quality of clinical treatment. A very small improvement in clinical treatment can make a very great difference to the life of the person concerned, and it is the intention of the Government to make it practicable to narrow the gap between the best clinical practice and normal clinical practice. Busy doctors cannot keep individually in touch with every improvement and every development in their skills, and the Government are helping to finance a number of demonstration centres for the best practice for the treatment of arthritis and the care and rehabilitation of the elderly.
I must now move on to those services which depend upon co-operation between hospital and local authority services. The House is aware that in the definition of "disabled" goes mental as well as physical handicap and also that the Government have found considerable resources for the improvement of treatment for the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill and the elderly—the elderly, many of whom are also disabled. There is going on, and will increasingly be going on, a great surge of upgrading and improvement, extra staffing, improved multidisciplinary management, more day hospitals, and more provision for the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped and the elderly in the hospital services—once again, not enough; but a beginning.
I would like to tell the House that joint discussions between the regional hospital boards and local authorities are

going on now to co-ordinate the services for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped. Local authorities in preparing the 10-year plans, which I am shortly going to ask from them, can collaborate with the hospital services in providing extra homes, hostels, day centres, sheltered jobs and clubs—and transport which is going to be needed for many elderly with the improved services for the mentally handicapped and mentally ill and elderly.
I would like to pay a special tribute again to the voluntary bodies in supplementing this vital work, and in particular to the services performed by the Spastics Society, the National Association for Mental Health, of which the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), who is sitting with us today, is Chairman, the Mencap Association, the Royal National Institute for the Blind—this cannot be a comprehensive list, but it is a list of just some of those with which I have been in contact—the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, the Central Council for the Disabled, the British Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled, the Royal British Legion, the Red Cross and St. John—and there are many other similar groups.
I should like to make special mention of a substantial class of the disabled who are not generally mentioned in this connection—the alcoholics. The Government have set aside £2 million for community and hospital services. A number of hospital projects have been approved. I am in discussion with a number of voluntary bodies and the National Council on Alcoholism to try to set in hand a national plan which the Government will help to finance.
I should like to give the House the latest figures of projects for the physically disabled. These are projects for which loan sanction will be recommended between this year and 1975. They number no fewer than 156 residential homes for the physically handicapped, day centres, hospital centres and combined day centres for the physically and mentally handicapped. This is 17 up on the figure I reported six months ago.
I turn to the hon. Lady's reference to telephones. I know that a number of hon. Members on both sides strongly believe that telephones would be a great blessing to the disabled. I am sure that


it is right that they would be a great social blessing. What I am not convinced about is that, at the vast cost which would be involved in providing telephones virtually wholesale they would be a proper priority, bearing in mind all the other priorities for the disabled that we have to consider. The evidence is that, socially valuable as the telephone is, it is not nearly as much a lifeline as people imagine. There is, above all, the problem that an elderly or disabled person cannot necessarily get to the telephone when he or she needs help, let alone reply to the telephone in isolated cases if and when it is rung.
The Government, therefore, are working with several research groups, in particular with the Post Office-Essex University research team and also with the National Corporation for the Care of Old People and the National Research Development Corporation research team in examining other alternatives for making it possible for a disabled person not in contact with a mechanism to give an emergency signal. I hope from time to time to report progress to the House. It is not that we under-estimate the importance of contact. It is that we are not sure, even in spit of Michael Young's study of Hull, that the telephone facility, expensive as it is, would be an effective lifeline.
I would like to tell the House that the Government intend to distribute later this year 3 million copies of a special booklet for the disabled describing benefits and services and facilities which are available. We shall try to get them into the hands of all those interested. The disabled have a need of a parallel world of adapted facilities, and access to them, in their own homes. I should like to turn to a subject of especial interest to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), and that is aids for the disabled.
The hon. Member will be aware that we recently made a grant to the Disabled Living Foundation. I have been baffled, frankly, by the sheer number and variety of gadgets and aids which are on offer. The House knows, but perhaps would like to be reminded, that I have set in hand a reviewing team which is studying at this moment the needs for aids and equipment, and I hope it will be reporting back to me this spring. I hope that when that reports we shall know what our priorities are and how best we can

get the information and evaluation into the hands of the key people, the prescribers and hospitals.
The hon. Lady referred briefly to housing. I can assure her that the Department of the Environment is conducting its study of facilities as fast as possible. One of the greatest miseries of the elderly disabled is that in many houses lavatories are not conveniently installed, and, sometimes, are not in the houses at all. The House will remember that the Government bought 1,000 chemical closets and distributed them to 20 local authorities. I hope this year to learn the lessons of the application of these palliative measures, pending improvement of the housing stock. Fast as the improvement of housing is going, it will take many years, and many of our elderly people will have to live in unimproved houses still.
The hon. Member for Eccles will be interested to know that the use of Possum is increasing fast. He was right in saying that the more knowledge there is of these gadgets the more will the take-up tend to be. They are growing increasingly fast.
The hon. Lady was right in saying that facilities for the disabled must include consideration of transport. I would like now to turn to the proposals the Government have in mind for the invalid vehicle service. I should like in particular to pay a tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) who has been, I was about to say, "a plague" to Ministers about invalid vehicle services. He has had the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) and the hon. Member for Wythenshawe, and others on both sides of the House.
My Scottish and Welsh colleagues—I see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office with us today—and I have just completed a review of the invalid vehicle service. As a result of this, we are making changes which, although accomplished within the limits of present expenditure, together enable us to secure important improvements. In trying to make better use of the existing money, it has been necessary to introduce a few savings in order to permit the improvements. The changes are these.
Persons qualifying for a vehicle will in future be able to forgo it and receive


instead an allowance of £100 per annum to run a vehicle of their own which is registered and insured in their name and which they hold a full licence to drive. These allowances will be introduced with effect from 1st April, 1972, and I understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be making arrangements for this allowance of £100 per annum to be tax free.
Vehicles will continue to be issued to people with some, though severely limited, walking ability if they need them to get to full-time work, but on cessation of employment the vehicle will be surrendered instead of, as hitherto, left with a person permanently once he has qualified for it.
Future recipients of cars issued by the Department will not be required to garage them. In consequence, the cash assistance accompanying the vehicle will be reduced by £25 per annum to £35 for each of the first two years after first issue of a new car, to £55 for each of the two succeeding years and to £65 per annum thereafter.
Future recipients of three-wheelers will not receive the £5 per annum petrol allowance.
Those unable to walk because of a heart or lung condition have hitherto had to show that they needed a vehicle to get to work in order to qualify for one. This employment condition will be removed.
Mothers who qualify for a vehicle will be able to have a car instead of a three-wheeler if they have the care of young children. The requirement that they must be in sole charge of the children will be removed.
Persons living alone in their own households, whose disability is such that they would normally have to be in full-time employment in order to qualify for a vehicle, will be able to have one even if not employed if they need it to carry out their household duties.
Persons whose walking limitations qualify them for a vehicle and who suffer from haemophilia may have a car instead of a three-wheeler.
Any vehicle issued by the Department or run with the assistance of the new allowance will be exempted from vehicle excise duty with effect from 1st April.
These changes will remove a number of anomalies that have developed over the years, introduce a desirable flexibility, meet many of the requests that have received a strong measure of support and increase substantially the number of beneficiaries, notably the unemployed "heart and lung" sufferers. Altogether we hope that about 10,000 people will benefit under the new arrangements.
We recognise that these changes do not solve the problem completely and we are already starting to think about possible future improvements. Before deciding the next priorities for any further help to those who are immobilised by severe disablement, we must consider the alternative ways of helping them, and the proportion of the resources that should be devoted to particular groups of severely disabled people.
We shall therefore within the next few weeks invite somebody from outside the Health Departments to study the subject and give us unbiased advice about further changes it would be useful for us to consider. We shall make it clear that the money available will be limited by competing claims on our resources. For this reason the inquiry will pay particular regard to the needs of people of working age. The resources of the Health Departments will be made available to the person conducting this inquiry, who will be asked to receive evidence from responsible bodies concerned with disablement, and I will ask for this work to be completed within a year. In due course I will inform the House of the main features of the advice received and the Government's intentions regarding it.

Mr. Neil Marten: I ought to be upstairs in the Select Committee, but I should like to thank the Minister for what he said about the all-party Disabled Drivers' Group, which has been running a long campaign. We shall study carefully what my right hon. Friend has said. I thank him, the Under-Secretary of State and the Prime Minister for the personal interest they have taken in the problems of disabled drivers.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Will the Secretary of State also say a word about the disabled passenger? What help does he see coming for the person who is too grievously disabled to drive himself or herself?

Sir K. Joseph: Before I answer the hon. Member for Wythenshawe, I should like to emphasise the point brought out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bambury. The statement I have been able to make this afternoon was very much the result of the intense interest taken in this whole subject by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison), and also the great interest shown by the Prime Minister personally.
In answer to the hon. Member for Wythenshawe, there must be some limit to the degree to which transport for disabled passengers can be treated as a priority, but the subject which he has raised will be one of those which will be studied by the inquiry which I have announced today.
I hope that I have said enough to show that the phrase in the Motion—
…the continuing lack of provision for the chronically sick and disabled.
is a complete denial of the truth.
It is natural that the House and the vast numbers of interested persons outside the House should be impatient for more progress. I understand and welcome this impatience provided, at least in this House, that it is realistic impatience and takes into account the other priorities which the Government must recognise.
No matter how fast the benefits spread—and they have spread and will spread more; no matter how the services for the disabled sprout—and they are sprouting and will sprout more: no matter how determined the Government are to improve conditions for the disabled; no matter what the evidence is that we are succeeding; the cry will still be "more and faster". I welcome the pressure and I welcome the impatience, provided it is realistic.
The Opposition have no moral right, after their ineffective six years of government—six years in which they did nothing specifically for the disabled—to press their Motion on this reforming, improving and active Government. I ask the House to reject the Motion and to carry the Amendment.

5.17 p.m.

Mr. Jack Ashley: I congratulate the Secretary of State on his great skill in making a feast

out of the crusts which have been offered to the disabled by this Government. I welcome the limited advances which have been made, but I do not suppose that even the Secretary of State would pretend that they have kept pace with the advances made by the rest of society.
The Secretary of State's speech must be seen, first, against the sombre background of the disabled people in Britain today, and the way in which they are regarded and treated as second-class citizens in our society. Secondly, the Secretary of State's speech should be seen in the context of the poverty of disabled people. There can be no doubt that for every disabled millionaire there are a million disabled paupers. The poverty of the disabled must be recognised against the claims put forward by the Secretary of State.
We must also bear in mind that nearly two years after the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act went on to the Statute Book it is still by no means fully implemented. That is a scandalous state of affairs that should concern this House. We should also take account of the shocking variations in treatment accorded to disabled persons depending on how much they are disabled. There are some indefensible anomalies between people with different types of disability. Then there is the scandal of the disabled housewives who are disgracefully neglected.
That is the context in which we must see the Secretary of State's rather euphoric statement. I was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman did not safeguard his comments, with his usual modesty, by explaining in some detail that this is only a start, although, to be fair, he was careful to embellish some of his points with this reservation.
We are dealing with a group of people who have no powerful trade union to fight for them. There is no eloquent spokesman to order a picket line on their behalf. Most of them have a restricted capacity to earn a living and many of them are prevented from earning high salaries, yet these are the people who have very high expenses.
This combination of the restrictive power of earning together with high expenses turns the poor disabled into paupers. They are relying on the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act and


the Government to help them, but so far they have been deeply disappointed, even to the point of bitterness.
When the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act was passed under the skilled and compassionate sponsorship of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) our hopes were high for what I then called a charter for the disabled. Many of us said at that time that it would revolutionise the provision for the disabled of Britain. However, its implementation depends largely on local authorities, among which we find the very good and the appallingly bad.
The House will be familiar with the Answers to Questions tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) last February and March in which he asked, among other things, how many disabled people per 1,000 were registered by local authorities and what amount was spent on each of them. The House will, I hope, recall the information that was given in reply.
It was clear that some local authorities had registered as many as 11·9 per cent. per thousand while others had bothered to register only 1·5 per cent. Glorious Canterbury had registered only 1·5 per cent. of the disabled. In terms of the amount spent on the disabled, some local authorities had spent as much as £70 per disabled person whereas, for example, Great Yarmouth had spent only £2·85. Since those answers were given one might have thought that changes would have come about and that more local authorities would have been responsive to the appeals of hon. Members on both sides of the House for more action.
The Secretary of State refused to give me up-to-date figures. His refusal was backed by the Prime Minister who, when pressed by me, also refused to give up-to-date figures. An odd thing happened after our exchanges in the House. Following the refusal of both the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister to give this information to me, the details of which appeared in the Press, I received a letter telling me that the figures had already been published, and my correspondent wrote:
These figures were revealed in a Welfare Services Statistics Report published by the Institute of Municipal Treasurers".

I have a copy of this report with me, and, as one would expect, some local authorities have shown a vast improvement, and every credit to them for so doing. Whereas Great Yarmouth had earlier been one of the worst offenders with a commitment of only £2·85, its expenditure has gone up to £13·59, which represents a wholly admirable increase which deserves every credit.
The figures still show a great discrepancy, first between the amounts of money spent and second between the numbers registered per 1,000 by local authorities. Dear old Canterbury is still near the bottom, registering only 1·5 per cent. per thousand.
The Secretary of State knows that I have been arguing for a long time for registration. He also knows my view about the value of the register and my anxiety to see 100 per cent. registration.
Leaving the question of registration aside for a moment, the figures published by the Institute of Municipal Treasurers prove conclusively that there are grave deficiencies in the amounts of money spent by local authorities, irrespective of the register.
For example, whereas average expenditure per 1,000 disabled people by county boroughs is £305, Oldham spent £678, making it top of the list, and I pay credit to it; Rochdale spent £645 as against the national average of £305, while Canterbury spent only £93 and Coventry £79.
In the light of these figures, with Oldham and Rochdale spending six times as much as Canterbury and Coventry, it is clear that the aldermen and councillors of Canterbury and Coventry are a disgrace to local authorities in that they are denying the disabled people of their cities what is being given to them six-fold by other cities, and I cannot see any defence for this state of affairs.
I ask the Secretary of State to turn his guns on these people at the conclusion of this debate. He can act as a great lever on indolent local authorities. I also want him to approach the Treasury with a view to getting a far greater amount of money spent on the disabled, for we are about to see unfolding a vast reservoir of human misery. I say that because the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons


Act is now becoming fully operative. We are, therefore, about to see revealed the suffering of thousands of disabled people about whom we have not known.
This piffling increase of 12 per cent. in the rate support grant is wholly inadequate. I appreciate that, like any other Minister, the Secretary of State must fight the Treasury. One example of what will be revealed is shown by Stoke-on-Trent, which has been conducting a city-wide pilot scheme and will undertake a city-wide survey. It expects the number of disabled people in the area to rise from 2,500 to 12,000, which is a 500 per cent. increase in the number of people who have to be helped.
This is why I say that an increase of 12 per cent. in the rate support grant is wholly inadequate. We must stop thinking in terms of traditional peanuts. We need a revolutionary approach to this grave national problem of those in need.
We need a strikingly new approach, also, to the anomalies between the industrially and the civilian disabled. There is no justification today for the historic differences between those who are injured within the walls of a factory and those who are disabled outside. To illustrate how differently they are treated, a man with two children who is disabled inside the factory, if he is really totally incapacitated, can receive £38·20, and he needs every single penny of it. A man in similar circumstances who is disabled outside or has an accident just outside the factory walls which results in the same disability and responsibility and the same amount of pain receives only £21. By any standards, there can be no justification for that anomaly, and I know that the Secretary of State will be only too glad to do what he can, because the House is not prepared to allow this state of affairs to continue without strong protest.
The main reason for the discrepancy is that the man who is industrially disabled receives a £10 disability benefit for loss of faculty. The other man gets nothing. The man who is industrially disabled receives £12 constant attendance allowance, whereas the other man receives only £4·80 attendance allowance.
It would be churlish not to recognise and welcome the limited steps which have been taken by the Government, but it

would be foolish to pretend that they are adequate. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) has argued the need for a change in the criteria for attendance allowance. I hope that sooner rather than later the Secretary of State will fight to establish that the attendance allowance may be paid in cases where attendance is required by day or by night rather than restricting it to those who need attendance day and night. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look closely at the possibility of a significant increase in the amount of the attendance allowance, especially in the light of the figures that I have given concerning the industrially disabled.
People who receive the attendance allowance, low though it may be, are allowed to keep it. However, that is not the case with the invalidity allowance. I find it incredible that a third of those who receive the invalidity allowance have it docked from their supplementary benefit. This is a very shabby conjuring trick: now you have it, now you don't; now you see it, now you don't. The Disablement Income Group has received many letters from people all over the country who cannot understand why those who are better off are able to keep the invalidity allowance whereas those in greatest need are deprived of it. This is another matter which I hope the Secretary of State will look at carefully.
The people who are treated most shabbily are housewives. This is an outrageous anomaly which we have endured for a very long time under successive Governments. There can be no excuse for it. Apart from qualifying for the attendance allowance, the disabled housewife is entitled to no State benefit. It is scandalous that housewives should be treated like this. It is an insulting anachronism that a housewife is not regarded as being "gainfully employed". The time is long overdue for her value to be recognised fully. She is not excluded from the National Health Service, and I see no reason why she should be excluded from disability pension. A housewife could be made eligible on her husband's insurance, and I hope the Government will act on this as soon as possible. Housewives and congenitally disabled people are called by the Disablement Income Group "the outcasts of society" and are the under-privileged. I


hope that they will be dealt with by the Government in the near future, brought in from the cold, and have adequate provision made for them.
What we require is a firm commitment by the Government to help disabled housewives and the congenitally disabled by giving them a disablement benefit as of right. The disabled do not want crusts from the Government. What is required is a comprehensive policy on income for all the disabled.

5.35 p.m.

Mr. John Astor: I am very happy to be called immediately following the speech of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley). We all respect the contribution that he has made to promoting the cause of the disabled. He is perhaps unique in this House in speaking from personal experience.
I always welcome debates on the problems of disablement and any attempt to promote the well-being of the disabled. However I find the terms of the Motion a little harsh, to say the least. Apparently it seeks to condemn this Government, which have already done more to recognise and make provision for the difficulties of the disabled than any of their predecessors. The Government's Amendment gives a far more realistic and balanced picture of the progress which has been made so far.
This criticism comes rather ill from an Opposition which, when in power, resisted a number of Private Members' Bills designed to help the disabled and the elderly and possessing objectives similar to those which, presumably, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite now advocate. I readily concede that the then Government gave a fair wind to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), which will prove to be a worthwhile and beneficial piece of legislation.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State does not need any defence from me. He has outlined the achievements of the Government, and he has shown that they have made a very good start. The representatives of organisations concerned with disablement recognise already my right hon. Friend's great understanding of the

problems involved, and they welcome the steps that he has been able to take.
That is not to suggest that there is not a great deal remaining to be done. I share the feeling of impatience that the Government have not been able to go even faster and further. But it must be borne in mind that the difficulties have been aggravated greatly by the almost total neglect of the problems by previous Governments of both political parties. We have to make up for lost time and overcome all the collective problems which have been allowed to accumulate over the years.
I remind right hon. and hon. Members opposite that when their Government were in power they found that it took much longer to translate good intentions into effective legislation than no doubt they would have wished. I can remember asking the then Minister of Pensions on 12th July, 1965, whether she would introduce an attendance allowance, which was one of the schemes which we had been led to believe previously were ready to swing into instant operation. I also asked her whether she would do so as a matter of urgency ahead of the general review being carried out at that time. The Minister replied, "Certainly", and added, fairly enough, that more should have been done already in previous years. My point is that, although she had this sense of urgency, and although, I am sure, her intentions were of the best, it was not until 1970 that her Government were able to introduce firm proposals. I am pleased to say that my right hon. Friend has moved much faster than that and introduced an attendance allowance scheme at an earlier date and at a higher level than had been proposed by the Labour Government.
The attendance allowance has got off to a good start, but most of us will accept the criticism which is being levelled against it that experience shows that the qualifications for eligibility are too restrictive. We all have constituency cases of people who do not at present qualify but of whom any commonsense assessment would say that their disability is such that they need a substantial degree of attendance. I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will pay special attention to the request which has been made to him on a number of occasions


that he should consider relaxing the requirement that attention must be required by both day and night.
It is arguable that if my right hon. Friend were so to widen the scope of the allowance those who would then become eligible would need rather less attendance than those who are already qualified. I do not think that the present allowance is over-generous, and it probably seldom meets the full cost. I hope that my right hon. Friend will take up the suggestion made by the hon. Lady the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) that he should consider—at least initially—a second tier of allowances at a slightly lower level for the new category which would be made eligible. If this suggestion would enable him to extend the eligibility earlier than might otherwise be possible, it would be welcomed by disabled people as a further step forward.
My right hon. Friend will remember the survey which was carried out by the Disablement Income Group into the various forms of financial provision which European countries make for their disabled citizens. After the publication of the report my right hon. Friend undertook to inquire further into this matter to see what lessons could be learned from the experience of our European friends. Is my right hon. Friend yet able to report his findings? If not, when does he expect to be able to do so?
I hope that when he is framing legislation my right hon. Friend will constantly bear in mind two principles which are fundamental. First, where it is medically possible disabled people should be encouraged and enabled to live at home with their families rather than in hospitals or other instutions. Second, they should be given every encouragement to take jobs and pursue careers. Those two principles are right, not only on human and social grounds, but also on economic grounds.
The cost of keeping a patient in a National Health Service hospital in the year 1969–70 was £2,839. We must recognise that usually disablement causes high living expenses, extra warmth, extra food, wear and tear on clothes, special equipment, or extra home help. However, these expenses are modest when set against the figure for keeping a disabled person in hospital for a full year. If there

is no medical need for a disabled person to be in hospital, he is preventing a patient who may require medical treatment from occupying a bed.
Although I say that these expenses are modest compared with the cost of hospital accommodation, for the families affected they are significant and often intolerable. The attendance allowance has been welcomed because it is a useful step to meet the expenses partially, as indeed is the supplement to the long-term sickness benefit. But neither of these benefits goes far enough, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will give further consideration to introducing an invalidity pension to cover the costs of disablement.
Under the industrial injuries scheme a severely disabled person may in certain circumstances receive up to £22 per week compared with the £4.80 of the attendance allowance which may be the only benefit to which a civilian disabled person is entitled. I agree that there may not be many receiving £22 but there are some. This gap is too wide. As the Disablement Income Group points out, it is not the cause of disablement which is significant; it is its results and effects, and the life of a person who suffers disablement is equally transformed regardless of whether the disablement arises at home or at work. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider closing this gap.
Everybody will agree that disabled people should be encouraged to take jobs, where practicable. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give further consideration to providing greater facilities for training, making special equipment more readily available, and relaxing the earnings rule so that there will be a greater incentive for disabled people to return to employment. I understand from the announcement that my right hon. Friend made today that he proposes to relax the restrictions on the provision of invalid carriages or converted vehicles for those disabled who find great difficulty in getting to their place of employment by public transport but are not at present eligible for invalid cars.
Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides will support the view that disabled people should be enabled to live in their own homes and take employment. Money spent in this direction would not be wasted and would probably be saved.


Every disabled person who was enabled to live at home rather than in hospital would be a money saver. Many potentially employable disabled people could be transformed from net receivers of State benefits into taxpayers, as was pointed out very convincingly by the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) last May.
In advocating expenditure on these two matters I am not seeking any special privilege for the disabled. I do not think that they would ask for special privilege. All they ask for is that they should be helped to overcome their handicaps so that they can live and work in near equal terms with their fellow citizens, which is surely a fair proposition.
I believe that disabled people have benefited from the all-party approach which has been brought to bear on these problems. Although I regret that hon. Members opposite who have been working with my hon. Friends and myself to help the disabled will be in a different Lobby tonight, I am sufficiently charitable to believe that the debate is prompted only by a desire further to promote the wellbeing of the disabled, and I look forward to our being able to continue to work together.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. David Weitzman: I am very glad to see that the Secretary of State is now back in his place. He started his speech with an attack on the Labour Government, suggesting that the Labour Government had done nothing. A minute or two later he referred to Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948. This is a very important Measure because almost for the first time it dealt with schemes of assistance to the chronically sick and disabled—something which had never been done by a previous Conservative Government.
The years passed from 1948 until my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) introduced his Bill. Up till then not a single piece of legislation had been introduced by any Conservative Government to assist the chronically sick. When my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe introduced his Bill, every Department affected gave assistance, and, indeed,

leaned over backwards to assist to make the Bill practicable. The General Election came, and the Labour Government took the precaution of seeing that the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill was made an Act of Parliament before Parliament dissolved. Therefore, I hope we shall have no more talk of what the Labour Government have not done.
I listened with great interest to the wonderful things which are supposed to have been done by the present Government since the Act came into force. Let us see what they have done. They have provided a certain amount of money and put in hand a number of schemes. Two years have passed and we have seen very little practical result.
I wish to refer to the Minister's comments on Section 1 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, because I had something to do with the drafting of that Section. The Minister has criticised our desire that a register should be kept. If he reads the words of Section 1 he will see that it is the duty of every local authority to inform itself of the number of persons to whom Section 29 of the 1948 Act applies. When the Bill was in Committee we wanted to devise a practical way of obtaining information about the number of disabled persons. We did not know how many there were. The information was very inadequate and, therefore, it was not possible to devise schemes or to apply assistance.
Let the Minister answer this question What have the local authorities done to obtain this information, whether by means of a register or otherwise? I agree that some local authorities have done so; others have not. But Section 1 not only requires a register; it also requires that information relating to the services provided shall be published and that the information is given to the disabled. Clearly some local authorities have done this, but some have not. We on this side of the House have repeatedly asked the Government for such information but it has not been forthcoming. If local authority resources are not available, steps should be taken to see that the considerable voluntary assistance which is available is mobilised to enable this Section to be fully implemented.
I repeat the criticism that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill). Surely the Minister should have made known to the disabled, on radio and television, the contents of this Section so that they would be aware of the duty placed on the local authorities and so that, if necessary, they could bombard the local authorities and say "Give us this information". Why has this not been done? Ministers very often speak on the radio and television; indeed, they very much like doing so on certain occasions. Here is a very good object. Why not appear on television or speak on the radio and tell the disabled of their entitlements and what the local authorities should do?
Let us now consider Section 2 which sets out in detail—summarising it quickly—that services should be made available such as practical assistance in the home, recreational facilities, meals, telephones and so on. Why has this not been done? How many authorities have provided these services or stated for the benefit of the disabled what services are available? It is all very well for the Minister to say "We have increased the amount to be paid to local authorities by 7 per cent.". But have the local authorities been advised, by circular or in some other way, that they ought to devote this money to implementing Section 2?
I have mentioned telephones. The Minister says that he is not at all certain that telephones would be helpful. I do not agree with him. Telephones would be very useful to the disabled in many cases. The fact remains that local authorities are not carrying out these provisions. In a recent article in The Guardian reference was made to a pilot scheme in Hull which showed that the death rate among elderly persons had been halved by the provision of telephones.
I put down a Question asking what was happening about the provision of telephones for the chronically sick and disabled. The answer I got was very interesting. I was referred to an answer given to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) as follows:
We will consider what further advice to give when we have received the findings of several current studies into means of emergency communication generally."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th February, 1972: Vol. 830, c. 223.]

What an example of an answer to a serious question about the provision of telephones! Have steps been taken to see that telephones are provided for the disabled where this is essential? Is there a means test? Is it not a fact that some local authorities have done almost nothing in this direction?
I now turn to Section 3 which requires a local authority to pay regard to the special needs of the disabled in the provision of housing accommodation. The Department of the Environment has an overall responsibility for housing. It is all very well to give a general answer, but I want to know what proposals the Minister has for providing such accommodation and what steps he has already taken. The House is entitled to that information. As an example of what the Department did under the Labour Government, when the Bill was in Committee we were very anxious to ensure that when buildings to which the public were admitted were erected provision should be made for access, parking and sanitary conveniences for the disabled. It was difficult to draft such a provision—I tried hard myself—and we had the assistance of the Department. Now we have Section 4, which requires provision to be made for access, parking facilities and sanitary conveniences for the disabled.
Again, the Department of the Environment has some responsibility. What information does it have about plans for buildings and premises to which the public are admitted where these facilities are, or are to be, provided? We are entitled to know.
Next, the question of education. I dare say that the Secretary of State cannot deal with this now, but we want to know what is being done to provide special educational treatment in certain respects for disabled children under Sections 25, 26 and 27 of the Act. Replies have been given to certain Questions, but the House is entitled to detailed information showing how the requirements of those Sections have been met.
The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act went on the Statute Book before the Labour Government left office, and much of it came into force, if I recall aright, on 29th August, 1970. Nearly two years have elapsed since then. We are entitled to know what practical


steps have been taken to achieve its objects.
I have with me a letter from the Hackney Association for the Disabled:
The Hackney Association for the Disabled is deeply concerned at the—

"(a) ever-increasing cost of spares, repairs and petrol to the disabled driver;
"(b) non-existence of special parking places for the disabled driver;
"(c) ever-growing conversion to self-service by petrol stations using petrol pumps which cannot be handled and used by disabled drivers;
"(d) shortcomings of the three-wheeler invalid car.
We are, therefore, of opinion that
(a) special concessionary garages could be opened by local authorities in order to do service and repairs and sell petrol to the disabled driver; and "—
this is extremely important—

"(b) there should be special parking places for the disabled driver close to shopping centres, theatres and sports grounds, and in close proximity to beauty spots;
"(c) that self-service petrol stations should make arrangements for an attendant to be on duty or for a special pump for disabled drivers' use only;
"(d) that the three-wheeler be replaced by a four-wheel Mini, which will enable the disabled driver to enjoy the companionship of his family and friends and thereby lead a full social and enjoyable life".

Mr. Ernle Money: The hon. and learned Gentleman has twice referred to the provision of special parking facilities for disabled people, a problem which has worried a great many of us. My local authority has made precisely that provision, but the difficulty is that members of the public deliberately use spaces which have been reserved for disabled drivers. Has the hon. and learned Gentleman any suggestion as to how we could persuade the public to keep such places free for the people for whom they are intended?

Mr. Weitzman: I do not suggest that there is a perfect remedy. I am urging that the problem be gone into and that steps be taken to try to deal with it. I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for raising the matter. I have here a letter from a disabled constituent, who writes:
At the present time disabled persons are very frequently unable to participate in public activities because there is no parking space reserved for their cars. For example, during the summer months I like to spend some

leisure time in Regent's Park, but I am prevented from doing so on most occasions as parking space is already occupied. I cannot leave my car and walk a distance. This also applies to sports activities which I should very much like to attend, such as football and cricket matches. It is most disappointing that after making the effort and looking forward to the outing, I have to return home just because I cannot park my car".
He then makes this suggestion:
It would be a great help to all disabled drivers if a few places reasonably near entrances to public activities could be allotted for cars belonging to disabled drivers, as we are unable to make use of public transport as an alternative.
I dare say that the Minister read the article in yesterday's Observer headed "Mental Health Scandal". Referring to the report on the Whittingham Hospital it said, inter alia:
How many more bewildered and frightened mental patients in other places are suffering torments in enforced silence?
It goes on to condemn society because, as it is said,
Such behaviour was and is only possible in an area of social neglect.
The right hon. Gentleman did not deal with the point, though my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax made it in opening, that one of the steps which must be taken now is to appoint as soon as possible a health ombudsman. The whole problem ought to be studied carefully to see in what way there can be some amelioration of these conditions.
I acknowledge that the Secretary of State is extremely sympathetic to the cause of the disabled and is anxious to do anything he can to assist. But we have in the past week seen how much discomfort can be suffered as a result of restrictions on heating and lighting among the population generally. How much greater must be the misery and discomfort suffered by the disabled as a result of their disabilities.
I welcome this debate. It is our duty to press the Government as strongly as we can to see that the maximum effort is made to do everything possible to assist the disabled. I do not wish to be too scathing in criticism of the Government, and I recognise that these things take time and the problems are difficult, but I remind them again that two years have elapsed since the Act went through the House. During those two years, much more could have been done. There is


a duty laid upon the local authorities. The Minister can do a great deal to see that those authorities which are lagging get on with the job and make a real effort.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are nearly 180 minutes left for back-bench Members. I know that there are 18 hon. Members who wish to catch my eye. The arithmetic is simple.

6.7 p.m.

Mrs. Jill Knight: The hon. Lady the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill), for whom I have a great regard, was served a most shabby trick by her right hon. and hon. Friends when they asked her to put this matter before the House today. Clearly she was uncomfortable. She knew very well that it was a shabby manœuvre, and her moral indignation was as phoney as a plastic penny. I am not surprised.
The hon. Lady charged the Government with inflexibility. We learned all about inflexibility towards the disabled when the Labour Government were in office and when she herself, I believe, voted at least three or four times against pensions for the very elderly. I vividly remember the occasion when we attempted to ensure that the Labour Government did not impose selective employment tax in respect of the blind and the disabled. The inflexible response of the Labour Government to that suggestion was unbelievable.
The hon. Lady admitted that there had been some inflexibility on the Labour side, and she was plainly most unhappy at having to argue that the present Government were in some way deserving of censure because of failure to do certain things, remembering, as she does, that her Government did nothing at all.
I felt that in adopting a moderate approach to the matter my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor) was wiser than some hon. Members who have spoken. I am certain that we achieve far more in a positive way for the disabled when we work together. In this context, I commend what was said by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) about disabled housewives. It is not my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who is deserving of censure on that score. All of us ought to be

concerned, for instance, about the way taxation militates against disabled housewives. This is not within my right hon. Friend's ambit but I am sure he is aware of the needs of disabled housewives and the fact that they are given an unfair crack of the whip. I am certain that he, being the man he is, will do all he can.
In the few moments that I intend to speak I want to make one or two suggestions for helping the disabled which should be looked at with sympathy from all sides of the House in a genuine desire to help and not to waste time in attacking. We are to have better hospitals for the mentally ill and I am glad that this is to be the case. May I put in a small plea for the staff? I know after last week that all of us felt very bitter about the Whittingham Hospital, which has already been referred to, and some of the things that the staff did there. By and large, however, the staff in these hospitals do well and patiently an incredibly heavy and difficult job. In planning better hospitals for the mentally ill we should bear in mind the tremendous task we ask these men and women to undertake in looking after the patients and we should give them the greatest possible facilities.
I was delighted on 11th November last year when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State approved proposals for 50 new residential homes for the chronically sick and disabled which, I understand, are to be finished by 1974. This is excellent. I believe that 72 more day care centres are to be set up, and I suggest that we should apply ourselves to this task with all possible speed.
I vividly remember, when I was a member of a local authority some years ago, receiving a letter from a lady in her 70s asking me to call and see her. I went and found that she had a son in his 40s who had been hopelessly mentally disabled from birth. She was unable to go out without him and she had never left him alone in all the 43 or 44 years of his life. The interesting thing was that she did not want to see me to complain but she wanted to ask me what would happen to Jack when she died. I was tremendously impressed with the selfless devotion which that woman had given for so long. If only there had been more day care centres to which Jack could have


gone, it would have made such a difference. I am conscious of the concern my right hon. Friend has for this matter and I urge him to see that these day care centres are provided with all haste.
I believe there are to be 31 combined centres for the elderly and physically handicapped and I am not altogether happy about them. I recognise that a great many handicapped people are elderly but I hope that the disabled and elderly will not be lumped together too much. Many disabled people are young and very active, as far as they can be, and it is not perhaps a good thing to have them shut up too much with the very elderly. I hope this will not happen in these combined centres.
I would also like to make the plea that more local authorities should be asked to give more help in the provision of simple things like baths and lavatory accommodation downstairs for the disabled. I have a constituency case of a young man who was injured in a motor cycle accident. He has become progressively worse because he gets heavier and heavier through being unable to move about and his mother finds it impossible now to bath him. There has been the greatest possible difficulty in obtaining help to fit a bath downstairs. The house is rented and the landlord cannot afford to put in the bath, yet he is quite willing to do what he can within the limits of his financial capabilities. May I ask that the local authorities should be urged to give the greatest possible help in providing facilities of this sort and in advancing money for mortgages? This would help many disabled people who are anxious to help themselves.
The local authorities could adopt a more sympathetic attitude towards moving elderly people, who have become disabled because of their age, nearer to sons and daughters. Frequently one finds a daughter or daughter-in-law for whom it is difficult to cross a city to keep in touch with an elderly parent. When one raises the matter with the housing authority, however, one hears the same old cry about the difficulty of getting one-bedroom accommodation.
We have heard a good deal about the attendance allowance and I quite understand what my right hon. Friend says about this matter being treated as a

priority. He is clearly thinking in terms of taking another step on the attendance allowance as soon as it is possible to do so. It seems to me that he is being thoroughly realistic in helping first those who need help most. This is the right approach and I hope we would all agree with it. But if people are unable to get their sleep at night it is impossible for them to look after a disabled person during the day. The hon. Lady the Member for Halifax mentioned that disabled persons were often under sedation at night. I would not like to think that they were not put under sedation when they could be for fear of losing the attendance allowance. This might possibly happen and I would not wish this to be the case. I feel we are pushing at a half-open door here and that my right hon. Friend is willing to give help.

Mr. Carter-Jones: I understand the problem of sedation at night, but one of the dilemmas of sedation is that the patient who has been disabled for a long time lies in the same position. The question of sedation could be made a lot easier if equipment like ripple mattresses, which would allow the fit person a full night's sleep without worrying about bedsores, was supplied.

Mrs. Knight: That is an excellent suggestion for which I am grateful and I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend and his junior Ministers will take it on board.
I come next to telephones, in which I have been interested for a long time. The Minister felt that it was not proved so far that telephones were the best way of helping the disabled although he is clearly examining this very closely. Although the flashing light method of attracting attention is worthy of careful consideration, and is probably cheaper, the benefit of a telephone is that relatives can ring the disabled person. This happens in a case I know, where the daughter rings from a telephone box at a certain time every day. She will therefore know that something is wrong if the telephone is not answered. An old or disabled person cannot be contacted with a flashing light in the same way as is possible when a telephone is installed. I have tried two or three times without success to have telephones installed where


I felt there was a clear need. I hope we can come around to the wider provision of telephones.
I should like to make a plea for a little more to be done in rehabilitation centres for those with head injuries. So far as I know, there are only two such centres in the country. The sad thing is that so often the injured are young people who have come off their motor cycle. They have suffered head injuries at a stage in in their life when everything was in front of them. I visited one rehabilitation centre and saw that although it is possible to teach such people to do simple things, all too often they cannot then go out and earn anything for themselves, even in a sheltered workshop. Therefore, they remain and the place is rather too static to help in their training. More might be done in that regard.
I would also ask for more sympathetic help for disabled people who do not qualify for a free car but buy their own, with some difficulty, and then find that the cost of conversion to hand controls is another burden they have to bear. Perhaps we could make help available to such people, many of whom are war-disabled. It is very hard for them to find that they have to pay an extra £30–£35 to convert their cars to hand controls, and they are not allowed to drive them unless they have hand controls.
Occasionally disabled people do not want to be put down on the register. I know how important it is from our point of view—from the point of view of authority, of people trying to help the disabled—to have a real picture of how many of them there are, but I would regard it as a very retrograde step if an elderly or disabled person with a rooted objection to being on any register were forced to have his name included. I hope this will not happen. Some people think that they must be included on registers, but it would be anathema to us all if people were put on them against their will.
I cannot support the Motion in any way. I can most warmly and wholeheartedly support the Amendment.

6.23 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I should like to express myself gently and quietly to the Secretary of State on behalf of one group of the chronically sick, the 2,000 or more people who die each year

because of kidney disease and who, between the ages of 15 and 55, might well be saved if our laws were a little different.
It is known to the Secretary of State that I have tried to introduce a Bill on transplants of human organs which was objected to on Friday by the Government Whips. I make no particular complaint about that, because we understand these matters very well. The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison), gave me a very courteous interview, as one would expect, and had obviously gone to some trouble to inform himself of the issue. So I make no complaint against the Under-Secretary. But it is my view that the Government are being wrongly advised in their lack of action on the MacLennan Report, published in 1969, on the whole issue of transplants.
The present situation is exceedingly unsatisfactory. I have had a letter from Roy Calne, Professor of Surgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital, which says of my Bill:
If it were passed as stated, it would be extremely helpful and I am sure would more than double the number of people to be treated by kidney transplantation, thereby saving many lives.
Professor Calne possibly does more of those operations than any other surgeon in the country.
I was told by the Under-Secretary that whereas the doctors involved in transplant surgery wanted the implementation of MacLennan, many other medical bodies advising the Government were doubtful. I can understand that great harm was done to the case for transplants because of the way in which a patient was transferred across London before he was dead so that he would die in the right place. I do not attempt to defend that. All I say is that that was an exceptional and scandalous case. On the whole the British medical profession does not do that sort of thing. I am very doubtful about where the Government are getting their advice, because since my interview, and since the Bill was objected to by the Government Whips, I have gone to some trouble over the weekend to discover those sections of the medical profession which are likely to have objected. With the best will in the world, after some effort, I


have been unable to do so. I hope that the Minister who replies will state specifically what advice the Government have had, and from where, against the kind of Measure I have been seeking to introduce on behalf of many surgeons. Soon my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas) will be presenting a great petition from McCabe-Wilkinson and his colleagues in Wales.
In going around the hospitals, has not the Secretary of State been told of the awful situation at present when the hospital authorities have to ring up the next-of-kin of someone who has suddenly and, by definition, unexpectedly died and ask them at the point of maximum grief, "Can we have the organs of your loved one?"? It is a terrible thing to do. I am glad that there are present the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Dr. Trafford), one of the sponsors of my Bill, and another sponsor, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill). They must have experience such as I have not had, though I have seen it done, of a hospital ringing up at the point of maximum grief and asking that terrible question. I see the hon. Gentleman nodding his head. It is the worst possible moment to ask that question. Relatives have told me that perhaps they would have made a different decision—either they would have been against the organs being taken, or they now regret that they were not taken—if it had had to be made 24 hours earlier or later. The time of maximum irrationality is certainly not the occasion to pop that question.
Therefore, there must be a change in the law. If the Government do not want to tinker with the law along the lines of my Bill, something that can be done fairly urgently is the introduction of a medical identity card. The great majority of the organs needed come from fatal accidents, and I believe that the majority of fatal accidents involve road vehicles. Therefore, while we are arguing about the implementation of MacLennan and changes in the law, would not it be sensible to think of introducing a medical identity card giving the blood group, details of certain allergies to penicillin, records of diabetes, allergy to steroid therapy, for instance, history of coronaries, and so on? In case anyone has doubts, as the hon.

Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) has, about people being forced to go on a register, I would point out that there is advantage not only to possible recipients of organs but to the potential donor, if he should suffer a motor accident and be critically ill. It would be far easier to save him if that kind of identity card existed. [Interruption.] Did the right hon. Gentleman want to intervene?

Sir K. Joseph: I was very tempted, because I am deeply interested in the subject, but I only wanted to ask whether the hon. Gentleman agrees that despite the difficulties to which he draws attention there are 200 kidney transplants a year where those difficulties are overcome. I doubt whether anything like as many as 2,000 would be medically saved if kidney transplants were available for them. The 200 kidney transplants a year are a small but important number, and it is clear that the law does not prevent them occurring.

Mr. Dalyell: Let us give credit to what is done, but speaking as a lay Member of Parliament I know that it is the opinion of those who know this subject better than I do—Sir Michael Woodruff, Roy Caine and others—that this could be changed.

Dr. Anthony Trafford: I take it that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was referring to renal transplants. The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) will be aware, as I am from personal experience, that in nearly all those 200 cases those concerned were put in considerable difficulty through problems of sentiment and maximum bereavement, as well as legal problems and all the other difficulties which he has raised.

Mr. Dalyell: I think the point has been taken by the Secretary of State. He has said that he is deeply interested. If he says that he is deeply interested, let us leave it at that, because it is his interest that we really want.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Woodhouse: Although I appreciate the disappointment felt by some hon. Members concerning the implementation of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, I am exceedingly sorry that it has been decided


by the Opposition to divide the House on the Motion, because if there is one subject which has benefited from all-party agreement it has been the care of the disabled. It seemed to me, although I shall want to study his speech very carefully, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made very important announcements today. I am particularly grateful to him for the announcement that the right to four-wheeled vehicles in place of three-wheelers under the National Health Service will be extended automatically to disabled haemophiliacs.
I am grateful for this extension, partly because I have been campaigning on this issue for 10 years, partly because there are so many haemophiliacs in my constituency because of the quite exceptional medical facilities available there, particularly in Churchill Hospital, partly—although this is a small point—because the vehicles they will be issued with are manufactured in my constituency and partly because haemophiliacs are a special case which is easily identified and they are especially vulnerable.
I have had a number of examples given to me by a doctor in my constituency who has specialised in this subject for years. He told me of a recent case of a young haemophiliac who, on getting into his Ministry-issued tricycle, sat down heavily on the metal frame of the seat, which caused bleeding. He was in hospital for a week and the cost of transfusions and drugs, not counting the cost of the occupied hospital bed, was £250. This sort of case can be multiplied many times and demonstrates how right it is to make this extension in the issue of four-wheeled vehicles.
Without wishing to be churlish I ask my right hon. Friend, since one always wants a Minister to go further when he has made a concession, to look into the further question of whether the three-wheeler really is a suitable vehicle in any case. In a letter to me the same doctor to whom I have referred calls these vehicles "tin coffins", and there is much evidence to support that view. I can give a few examples from in and near Oxford. There was the case, for example, in November, 1969, of a 26-year-old paralysed man, Mr. Keith Smith, who was blown off the road at night in his three-wheeler and fell into a ditch 8 ft. deep in which he stayed 14 hours before being found.
Then there was the case in July, 1970, of a spastic, Mr. Lyndon Bower, whose vehicle was blown into the course of a lorry on the A40, hit and thrown into the ditch. Fortunately he was rescued at once. If he had not been, he would have been burnt to death in his vehicle. There was the case only a week or two ago of a more elderly disabled driver, Mr. Jack Fisher, who was blown into the path of an oncoming lorry near Witney and killed. I cannot say any more about this case because the inquest is continuing.
These cases and much other evidence, including my personal experience of driving these vehicles, underline the very serious defects to which they are liable The steering is extremely difficult; the gears are also extremely difficult to operate; it is impossible and, indeed, illegal to carry a passenger; most serious of all is the instability of any three-wheeled vehicle, which all these cases illustrate.
The doctor I have quoted suggests that these vehicles would be more stable if the third wheel were at the back instead of at the front. I know that my right hon. Friend's advisers tell him that for some disabled people this type of vehicle is the best and the only suitable one. For others, however, it certainly is not. I think it rather striking that disabled ex-Servicemen are all automatically entitled to four-wheel vehicles and I have never heard anyone saying that in their case a three-wheeler is the more suitable. At least further help should be given to those for whom it is not suitable to acquire a mini-car instead. I hope that I have rightly understood my right lion. Friend's announcement today as opening the door some way in that direction.
As we all agree, most of the disabled who can do so want to go to work and lead a normal life, and they should be enabled to do so. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider other ways of making it easier for them—for example, by arranging with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for exemption from value-added tax of equipment specially designed and made for disabled people. My right hon. Friend said that he was baffled by the number and variety of aids. I hope that he will give his attention to an article which will be published in next month's issue of Action, the journal of the National Fund


for Research into Crippling Diseases, by Mr. Donald Guthrie, which will show further examples of equipment which can be used only by disabled people. There is no difficulty in discriminating in favour of these items in the value-added tax because no one else could want or use them.
My right hon. Friend has also been urged—and I endorse the plea—to look carefully at the operation of certain recent measures by both local and central authorities because of the rather restrictive interpretation which is put upon them. I was struck by the revelation of the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) that in the case of the constant attendance allowance about 80 per cent. of the appeals against rejection are successful. This suggests that extremely severe—indeed, unduly severe—criteria are being applied in the first place.
I will not go over the matter of telephones again because this has already been the subject of considerable comment. But there is another Section of the Act to which I want to draw attention. Section 15 provides permissively for the inclusion of disabled persons on appropriate committees of local authorities. This is not being sufficiently implemented. When one puts down a Question about this kind of point, it is also disappointing that one gets an answer not from my right hon. Friend but from the Department of the Environment. I cannot help feeling that the Department of the Environment is not temperamentally or by experience the best-equipped Department for dealing with matters of this kind.
Moreover I foresee difficulties in future over the application of some Clauses of the Housing Finance Bill, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will discuss this with his colleagues concerned. For example, will allowance be made for the special needs of the disabled with specially designed houses? Will their needs be taken into account in fixing a fair rent? Can special provisions relating to the severely disabled as well as the blind be included in Schedule 3 to the Bill which deals with the subject of needs allowances? Clause 23(2) provides for advisory commitees, and I suggest that my right hon. Friend recommends to the Department of the Environment that these committees should be empowered

to co-opt disabled people in exactly the same way as is provided for by Section 15 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act.
Finally, I hope that my right hon. Friend will sympathetically consider the argument of the Disablement Income Group that it is essential that financial help be available as of right to those severely disabled who are simply incapable of being self-supporting. The public are becoming alert to these problems. A few weeks ago I attended the inaugural meeting of the Oxford branch of the Disablement Income Group, and it was without exception the largest public meeting in my constituency that I have ever addressed. As this case shows, public opinion is alert now and when public sympathy is enlisted on behalf of a special case, as the Government learnt last week, it is not lightly to be ignored.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: I hope that the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) will forgive me if I do not comment too closely on what he said. I join him and the Secretary of State in paying tribute to the work of his neighbour the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) for his work on behalf of disabled drivers.
I wish to take up three features of the debate. The hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) on the subject of prescription charges. I remind her that when the Labour Government imposed prescription charges many of their backbench Members were in revolt, and I led them into the Division Lobby, so that at least we made our protest.
The meanest thing the Government have done is to tax the chronically sick by increasing the cost of the "season ticket", for which only the chronically sick have to pay. from £2 15s. to £3 10s., an increase of 15s., which brings in the infinitesimal sum of £25,000 to £30,000 a year in a budget of £2,100 million. I cannot see how the Government can possibly justify that.
The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor), who does so much for the disabled, spoke of the problems of employment. I wish to draw the attention of


the House to the blind who are unemployed, for 10 per cent. of blind persons are now unemployed. That is the sort of rate which causes the House serious concern when it occurs in a geographical region like Northern Ireland or Scotland. This poses special problems, because for years Governments of both parties have been trying to get the blind, the deaf and other disabled into the ordinary run of work in the community and not necessarily having to be put on one side in sheltered workshops. But the consequence of this policy is that they are the first to fall the moment there is an economic blizzard. It is urgent that the Secretary of State for Employment should negotiate now with the Secretary of State in order to help blind persons who are unemployed by finding them jobs.
As an example of the art of brevity I commend the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). I was able to do so in a recent speech I made in Standing Committee C. I wish to follow him by commenting on the use of kidney machines and renal dialysis as an adjunct to transplants. I should like the Secretary of State to pay special tribute to the nurses involved in this work in the last five weeks when there has been a tremendous work load because of power failures. Patients receiving home dialysis have had to be fully supported by hospital units, and it would be most appropriate if the Secretary of State sent a special letter of commendation to the nurses concerned. If I may introduce a personal note, my daughter worked 70 hours last week on maintaining patients needing renal dialysis.
This Government are learning very slowly—and with painful consequences to the rest of the nation—that a boardroom balance sheet is not the way in which to run Great Britain and that £.s.d. is not the only factor to consider. I exempt the Secretary of State from that charge, because the Health Department is a great educator of all its Ministers and the right hon. Gentleman in particular learnt very quickly, though he has the Chancellor of the Exchequer breathing down his neck. I congratulate him on having moved occasionally in the right direction.
But the Government have not yet shown that leadership which is demanded by the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris). More drive and not just vague exhortation is required. Most of all, they have to find the cash. I differ from the Secretary of State, as have others, about the provision of telephones for old and disabled people. It would not be all that expensive, and a try-out should be given priority.
It is especially urgent for old people living alone and for old people who are disabled, for many of them do not have too long to live and to enjoy the amenities with which they ought to be provided. The right hon. Gentleman ought to cost the exercise, prepare plans and then give the House some idea how much it would cost to provide telephones, first, for old and disabled people and, second, for old people living alone. It is ridiculous to expect the Post Office to mount this exercise as a kind of commercial proposition. It is a community responsibility and, therefore, the concern of the Government and not just a problem for the Post Office. It is time that the Government faced the implications of the Act and realised that the chronically sick and disabled have the whole-hearted support of the community.
An economic problem which the right hon. Gentleman has yet to face is the shortage of manpower, and it is time that he considered having a Royal Commission to investigate manning the kind of services which the Act demands. It is time to consider, with the present unemployment problem, how people could earn their livelihood by giving service rather than employment always being geared to production. It is a revolutionary concept, but for more than 10 years we have talked solely of more productivity and more automation, but the consequence has been a million unemployed, and the Government must now start to think seriously about not only economic power and the production of goods but how to man services. We must find people to provide help for the chronically sick and disabled, to give only one example. The probation service is another.
As a matter of urgency, the right hon. Gentleman should consider the needs of


mentally handicapped children, and negotiate with the Society of Physiotherapists the possibility of doing what is done in Denmark—that as part of their training course physiotherapists should spend three months with mentally handicapped children. It would give them an insight into that sector of the service, and it would benefit the nation as a whole.
Finding more manpower by making manpower more mobile is a Cabinet responsibility, and it is time that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues discussed the possibility of men and women being able to change their employment at the age of 50 after a career of, say, 25 years, but taking with them accrued pension rights. The Government should initiate a scheme so that people who wish could work in health services, social welfare, or the probation service, any service which was short of staff. There are hundreds and thousands of people in industry who, after 25 years in one career, would be prepared to engage in a compassionate service for the last 15 or 20 years of their working life, if only they could keep their accrued pension rights and undergo training at Government establishments with maintenance grants for the term of their re-education.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman again to consider a suggestion which the Opposition have hammered at the Prime Minister for some months—that there should be one Minister responsible for the chronically sick and disabled. At present one disabled person can have his needs looked after by nine different Government Departments. If it was possible for the Labour Government to have one Minister responsible for sport and shift the same Minister from one Department to another, the present Government ought to be able to have one Minister responsible for the chronically sick and disabled and able to cut across the Departments and thus provide these men and women with the service which they de-verve and which the community thinks they ought to have.
I pay tribute to my own local authority in terms of implementing the Act—the London Borough of Brent. For some years under the previous Tory Administration it has been notorious because of its conduct in many affairs, and my ward of Neasden has been referred to in every

edition of Private Eye as being the kind of place that everyone can have a joke about. I pay tribute to the way in which the Director of Social Services in my borough has, with full support of the present council, grappled with the Act in spite of the problems that other hon. Members have mentioned, including the shortage of manpower.
I pay tribute to the way in which social workers in Willesden have been dealing with old people during the last five weeks, in terms of the fuel crisis and other problems.
Our difficulty has arisen in terms of Section 1 of the Act—finding those who are most vulnerable and in the most need. We are grateful for the voluntary organisations and the kind of co-ordination that we are receiving from bodies like the Knights of Columba which are helping us find these people and ascertain exactly what kind of help they need.
We must accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax, that 90 per cent. of all cases are known to their general practitioners, and that there must be a mutual two-way traffic between local health authorities and the general practitioner service. I ask the Under-Secretary of State to ask his Department why we could not have a crash programme during the summer, employing and paying students who are always looking for work during the long recess. Why not attach them to local authorities and general practitioners in order to implement Section 1 of the Act?
I pay tribute to my Borough's Department of Development in relation to the provision of ramps in buildings and devices and conversions in the homes of disabled persons. One fact that the Government have entirely ignored is that in places like this Chamber we could have an induction coil enabling people like myself, wearing hearing aids, to hear more effectively. This sort of thing could be done in many public buildings. It would cost only about £250 for a Chamber like this. Why is the Department of Health and Social Security not using its research facilities which produced the Medresco hearing aids? It has the Dollis Hill Research Station at its disposal, and it could produce and sell the electrical equipment needed to cope with bad acoustic properties of cinemas and public buildings. The acoustic properties


of most cinemas are 10 times worse than those in Committee Room No. 14 upstairs; and that is saying something. It is very difficult to hear what is going on. This mechanical device, which is technologically possible, should have the drive and incentive of the Secretary of State behind it, because it is possible to carry out a nationwide scheme within the provisions of the Act.
In the East End, where I was brought up, we had a saying, "It's the poor what helps the poor." I pay tribute to the fact that in many local authorities it is the old and the disabled who are making a reality of the Act. In my area a joint leaflet issued by the local authority and the Brent Association for the Disabled has been successful. Thanks to the co-operation of the Union of Post Office Workers in Brent we are able to reach immediately people who need help. The whole of the postal services in my area, jointly with the social services, operate a system of the "card in the window"—the scheme that was pioneered in Cambridge. An elderly or disabled person needs help, and the postman knocks to find out the need. This sort of scheme could be extended if there was more drive by the Department, but what is happening? Practically nothing.
I conclude by referring to the section of the Act which I drafted and which still needs to be implemented—Section 24. This provided for the Secretary of State to report on the establishment of a national research institute into the problems of deafness. At the moment, in research, there is the chance of a positive breakthrough. For the first time it may be possible to prescribe an aid for a deaf person in the same way as it is possible for any optician to write a prescription for a pair of glasses which can be dispensed by any other qualified optician. In hearing this is not possible.
The reasons that I gave when I first drafted the Section remain valid, after two years. I invite the Under-Secretary to whisper to his Parliamentary Private Secretary asking him to get some information from his officials so that he can deal with this point. He knows that his Department has done a lot in terms of homework on what is needed to establish a centralised research institute as an apex organisation. We have heard nothing about this for two years. I hope that when the Minister replies he will

give us a progress report. At the moment research is carried out by ardent individuals scattered throughout the country. Since the passing of the Act there has been an upgrading of the work at the National Hospital by the Medical Research Council, on which I have the honour to serve. A full unit is there under the direction of Dr. Hood. There are many other research projects, but there is no co-ordination. There is a need for team work between doctors, audiologists, engineers, physicists and technicians. We need an apex institute that will attract the best brains and scientists of the highest calibre to give weight and authority and a focal point for all research into deafness.
The problem that we face today arises to some extent because of the slow reaction of the Government, but I accept that they are all men of good will—and those with responsibility in the localities are doing what they can with the resources at their disposal. But they are not doing half enough. The object of this debate is to increase pressure upon them to persuade them to do a little more. We cannot salve the social conscience on the cheap. If we want to help the chronically sick and disabled we shall have to accept increased taxes and increased rates hills. We should thank God that we are not blind, deaf, disabled or chronically sick and be prepared to pay for the needs of those who are. Only thus can we discharge our responsibility.

6.55 p.m.

Mr. Charles Simeons: This debate began in a mildly controversial way, and no doubt it will end true to form. In between we have got down to the facts of life. Hon. Members on both sides have been exchanging information, which is as it should be. I support the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). It is either that I reflect him or he reflects me, as is borne out in Early Day Motion No. 4 in my name, supported by the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill), my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), among others. One cannot say that this is a party Motion; it is an all-party Motion.
If there are those who wish to become kidney donors—and there are—let the fact


be made known much more easily. Until we permit it to be made known, we are putting a bar in the way of human happiness. We are stopping people being given a chance of becoming independent. We are saying that they should remain tethered to a kidney machine.
Whatever we may say of South Africa, at least it has the right idea in this respect. It does not produce more kidney machines; it tries to eliminate them by enabling people to be given transplants, so that they can continue to lead useful and active lives. I went to Hammersmith Hospital and saw a whole series of these processes, including a transplant, which I found all the worse for being in glorious Kodacolour. It was remarkable to see a girl sitting in bed waiting for a transplant, to see the transplant carried out and then to find her sitting behind me, hale and hearty. I asked her how she was getting on and she said, "They think that we are sick because we have only one kidney, but not a bit of it. I am working as a hairdresser and I do my job every day." She had been made independent; we had stopped tethering her. That is what the hon. Member for West Lothian and those who support the Motion to which I have referred have been endeavouring to achieve.

Dr. Trafford: I support my hon. Friend on the question of transplants but I do not go so far as he does on the question of tethering. Home dialysis is superior over a five-year period compared with a transplant. It is right to press for transplants, but I plead with my hon. Friend not to overdo it. The figures are 66 per cent. against 80 per cent., which is something that my hon. Friend ought to bear in mind before pleading too strongly for this form of treatment.

Mr. Simeons: I accept what my hon. Friend says. If he talks to those who have been on a machine and have undergone this discomfort three times a week and who have then gone for five years with a transplant, I think he will soon see which course they would prefer. I accept what he says and the warning should be given. I am only asking that people be given the opportunity to become donors, not forcing them to have transplants.
It is the progressives who always have the greatest hopes but, as we know from

experience, this hope is usually unfounded and life becomes progressively more difficult.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor) mentioned employment. No doubt Luton is typical of the rest of the country. The percentage of disabled unemployed there is rising. In Luton 18 months ago it was a fraction of the total unemployed. Today it is 10 per cent. This means that these people cannot use their limbs, they have to stay at home and if they are men it means that they are getting under their wives' feet, causing great dispute.
Even though firms are told that they have a responsibility to employ disabled people we know that many do not discharge this responsibility. There would be merit in saying that firms above a certain size must pay a reasonable wage for one, two or three disabled people irrespective of whether they are employed. If they did not employ the people the money would go into a central fund. These people should be paid a proper wage, not a notional figure. They are putting far more effort into their work than fit persons. It means an enormous amount to them even if it is a great sacrifice for them to go out.
While it is vital to have definitions for constant attendance allowance, I hope we will move beyond that. It is not only those who are totally incapacitated who need constant attendance; there are vigorous people who need it just as much. People who are totally blind probably need more assistance than anyone else. Imagine a blind man dropping a cigarette. He does not know where it has gone. I know a blind man who has had most things happen to him. He has been in hospital for a long time and has applied for a constant attendance allowance. He has broken both ankles and both wrists, suffered a double hernia and set the house on fire more than once. If anyone needs an attendance allowance it is this man, because his wife's life is made a misery. I hope that we will look outside the element of incapacity and examine those who may appear to be vigorous but who need looking after.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) spoke about the problems of the three-wheeler. This vehicle has a chain drive, generally operating in the gutter. It is probably


one of the worst possible forms of propulsion. In snowy weather all that happens is that the vehicle skids out to the middle of the road. Another problem which some of my disabled friends experience in travelling about in these vehicles is that they cannot get out of them. They are stuck at the side of the road and wave to oncoming motorists who think that they are merely enjoying the summer sunshine and wave back again. No one takes any notice. We need some sort of distress signal. There is great difficulty in getting the machines serviced when the service stations are many miles distant.
Electrically-propelled chairs involve a long delay in delivery. I am told at the factory that there are plenty of chairs but that orders are awaited from the Ministry. I hope that this position will be investigated. If long delays occur, in cases of progressive disability by the time these vehicles arrive they are useless.
Coming now to television sets, I am told by the Cheshire Foundation that aged persons in a home do not need a television licence.

Mr. Fred Evans: I believe the hon. Gentleman will find that that is true only where there is a communal lounge. Many authorities which have old people's flatlets with no communal lounge have discovered that it is necessary for the individuals to hold television licences.

Mr. Simeons: I am grateful to the hon. Member. I was thinking of homes where old people want to have television sets in their rooms. I understood that they do not have to pay for licences, whereas the chronically sick do have to pay. When the Minister was written to about this he was far more interested in making the elderly pay than in giving free television to the disabled. I hope that this position will be looked into because while it can be done under the auspices of the local social services I feel that it ought to be recognised by my right hon. Friend.
The hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) raised the question of prescription charges and pointed out that there are instances such as heart complaints when people have to pay for their prescription charges if they go to work.

A man suffering from a heart complaint may stay at home on his doctor's instructions and in that case can obtain his prescriptions free of charge. If he decides to take drugs and go to work he immediately has a financial burden imposed on him. My right hon. Friend has shown that he is not inflexible and I hope that he will reconsider this.
Many right hon. and hon. Members have spoken about the things which have not been done but it is worth while pointing out what has been done. In my constituency a survey was carried out. To begin with the survey contacted every tenth house because it was felt that writing to every house might be considered an intrusion. The response has been remarkable in that neighbours who were written to have spoken about other neighbours and a large amount of information has been collected. Among the things that have been done are the provision of parking space and telephones—although there are not enough of these—television sets and licences, and a geriatric hospital runs a daily laundry service for the disabled. This is not enough but it is a start. If we want to get the message across, no group of persons is better placed than ourselves. How many times do our words appear in local papers? How many times do we mention the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act? If every time we spoke we mentioned the Act, there would not be a soul in our constituencies who did not know about it.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: I suppose I am the person who is called a dreamer and an idealist on this subject in the House but I claim to be the realist. Let me make one plea at the outset. As I walked from my room near the Grand Committee Room off Westminster Hall I saw that someone is spending vast sums of money on an exhibition showing what our extension will look like in the fullness of time. Will the Under-Secretary think in terms of getting the Department to mount a massive display showing what can be done for the severely handicapped to help them overcome their disabilities? That hall would never, in its history, have been put to better use. We have all seen the possibilities. We are talking not about dreams but about realities.
The hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Simeons) said that we should refer to these matters in our constituencies. I thing we all do. But we are nowhere near realising the possibilities. I speak as an economist turned assistant to disabled people. I am not a medical man. I have been privileged to meet a large number of dedicated disabled people and dedicated politicians who wish to make a contribution, but the trouble is that the pace of progress is all too slow. Let me repeat what I have said over and over again. I must be careful not to identify strangers, but I can see people whom I should not see who in their capacity as civil servants have helped me considerably to advance the cause. They have done their best, but we have a major communication problem.
I am not suggesting that there are diseases which can be cured, but no matter how badly disabled, anyone with a residual voluntary movement, even if it is a winking of the eye, given the application of known technology, can control his environment and live an independent life, which is what we are aiming for.
I am deligted that the Secretary of State has returned to the Chamber because I wish to pay him a further compliment; no doubt he will be embarrassed by this. He took the trouble, at seven o'clock one morning, to travel with me to Aylesbury to see a piece of equipment and a research unit which may affect the lives of countless hundreds of thousands of people. Somewhere down the line we have slipped up, not because we do not want to help, but because we do our sums the wrong way round. The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor), whom I count as one of my hon. Friends, pointed out the cost of keeping people in hospital. He, too, has taken the trouble to see what can be done, not by one unit, but by many.
The trouble is that frequently we take people from their known environment and put them in places where they receive very expensive help when they should be with their loved ones. I can point out case after case in which it is not the disabled person who dies but the fit person who did the nursing, the loved one who was prepared to make the sacrifice of keeping the family together. This is the tragedy.
I am sure that the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State will know the three Sections of the Act of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) to which I shall refer—Sections 22, 1 and 2. Section 22 was primarily intended to show people what developments were taking place. A document has been produced, but I do not think much of it. It is better than the situation we had before, because we never had a document before, but it can be improved. It should be produced in two editions. The first edition should be produced in a form which laymen and disabled people can understand; it should be brief, to the point and illustrated. The second edition should be published in some detail, using perhaps the esoteric language of the technologist and the medical man so that they, too, may understand what is said.
A large number of voluntary societies to which the Secretary of State paid great tribute collect money with considerable skill from the public and do tremendous research work. None of it appears in the publication primarily because the Act deals with what the Government are doing. However, when the Bill was going through the House we were given an assurance that if the voluntary societies wished to say what they wanted to do and what they were doing it would be published. The voluntary societies raise their money with great difficulty. They sponsor research, and reference to their research projects should be made in this document.
I urge the Secretary of State to ensure that the voluntary organisations are consulted. It may surprise him to know that when serving as a layman on committees dealing with the question of aids for disabled people I have heard organisations asking for tens of thousands of £s for solving problems which I knew had been resolved. No voluntary society or Government can afford to squander money in this way. I implore the right hon. Gentleman to make sure that research projects are not duplicated and that money is spent in the right direction. I am not speaking for or against Rothschild, because that is another argument.
Sections 1 and 2 of the 1970 Act cause me the greatest anxiety. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent,


South (Mr. Ashley) and myself have urged the Secretary of State time and again to tell us how much each local authority spends and how many people are registered. He has said, rightly or wrongly, that figures in respect of this matter are misleading. For the sake of the argument, I will concede that they are misleading. But I have never known misleading figures to produce so many results. When they were published 12 months ago, a large number of local authorities were frightened out of their wits. Many of them said, "In what sort of behaviour are we engaged?" Never have I known misleading figures to produce such dramatic results. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to produce some more? May I ask him to shake the complacent?
Let me give him one simple example. I am not making a party point. The right hon. Gentleman's Government talked about setting the local authorities free. In 10 seconds fiat let me mention the Education (Milk) Act whereby the Government tied their hands. Because some of the backward authorities moaned and complained and were bitter about the figures because they were ashamed of themselves, the right hon. Gentleman's Department gave in to them. I ask him to look at this again. I ask him not to give in to people who are completely ashamed of their behaviour. The next time I table that Question about the numbers, if I can get it past the Table—even Mr. Speaker has had to look at it and to say that he regretted it could not be accepted—the next time I table it, if I can find a formula by which to do so, will the right hon. Gentleman quell his anxieties about the figures being a bit misleading? They will produce results for disabled persons.
Many other hon. Members want to speak, and so only briefly will I make my next point. When we were discussing the "Alfred Morris Bill" some of us, on both sides of the House, were saying that in this country there were roughly 1 million to 1·25 million disabled people. When we said that, we saw eyebrows raised at the Dispatch Box. I had never before seen eyebrows raised as high. "Nonsense. Ridiculous. Exaggeration. There is nothing like that number." That was the response from the Box. Then Amelia Harris's report came

out. If we were wrong, we were wrong on the right side: we had underestimated. There were three times as many disabled people as were were talking about, three times the number that Ministers at the Box quibbled about.
I come now to a category I want particularly to mention to the right hon. Gentleman, for whose work in this field I have very considerable regard. I ask him to consider category 4 mentioned on page 17, table 8, of the Amelia Harris report. There are nine categories of disabled people. I conclude by mentioning the fifth. Remember, this number does not include those who are already in homes, and it does not include those under 16. Even so, there are 512,000 people in this category of very severely disabled. This is the point I want to make. This is the category of those who find it difficult to tell us they are disabled. It is the category of those who are housebound, who are immobile. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned four cases today. I appreciate them. But there are 200,000 people who are severely disabled who are not receiving attention. If somebody wants to challenge that figure I hope he will get up and start doing so now.
I quote a single figure of the severely handicapped which the right hon. Gentleman himself conceded in a debate when he recognised that there were 8,000 severely disabled people who live alone. If they were taken into hospital it would cost a considerable sum of money indeed. If we use haste, if we use compassion, if we use real drive and initiative, and if we find them, we do our souls a power of good, we do those people a power of good and we do a lot for the quality of life in this country.
I end with four appeals. The problem of the disabled is one of communication: please do not despise the telephone. There is the problem of immobility. That is not insurmountable. There is a case of a well-known paralysed polio victim who, on his back, drives a vehicle. He has passed his driving test with care and efficiency. He lives in Horsham. I am not talking about curing the disabled, but there is no disability, where there is any voluntary movement left, which cannot be relieved and which cannot be alleviated. I have permission to mention one case mentioned in backchat in debate


with the Prime Minister, who took it up, the case of a man who for 29 years had lived happily with his wife but who regrettably had an illness which meant that for the latter part of his life, he would not communicate because all the mobility he had left was the ability to move his chin sideways slightly. Equipment was quickly and efficiently supplied for him. His wife has written a most delightful letter. The man died, but they had six very happy months together before the end of his life, because they communicated. They had that last-minute happiness because of that equipment. The equipment remains for the next person. I make this plea to the right hon. Gentleman not to let the reluctant, the backward local authorities pull the wool over his eyes. If the figures can be misinterpreted slightly, they can be put right. I urge him to insist that Section 1 of the Act shall be fully implemented.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. Ernle Money: The hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), who has just made so powerful and compassionate a speech, spoke of the need for a major exhibition to show what has been done and is being done in the field of disablement technology, and I support him in that. No one has done more than he has to draw the attention of the House and of a large section of the general public to these matters.
One of the things which has given me most pleasure in the brief period I have been a Member of the House has been the bipartisan and crusading attitude which there has been in all parts of the House on the question of the disabled. In the circumstances, I am particularly glad to see that the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), who after all, as a Private Member, brought in the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill, now the Act, with all-party support, will be winding up for the Opposition tonight.
I regret, therefore, that the Opposition have seen fit to divide the House on this issue tonight, but I hope indeed that in no way will any Division we have tonight serve to loosen the very real friendship and the very real bipartisan achievement which there has been by committees like the all-party Committee on Disablement

and the all-party Committee on Disabled Drivers.
I was deeply moved by the plea made recently in my local paper the Ipswich Evening Star that what caused grave distress among disabled people was the thought that they might be used as a potential political plaything. I hope the House and all those who are involved in politics will keep that very much in mind.
The real future here lies in co-operation between the Government, who have to provide most of the money, the local authorities and the voluntary organisations. To give one example of what is happening in my constituency, the recent development of a new civic centre in Ipswich enabled a large, fine Georgian house in the middle of the town at present used by the corporation to become available. The local authority in 1969 decided to plan to co-ordinate there the work of all the voluntary organisations under the aegis of the Ipswich Council of Social Services. I very much hope that the availability of all those services under one roof, together with an adequate citizens' advice bureau, will serve both the disabled people and those who wish to do voluntary service.
I hope that some of the good will and co-operation which have been shown during the difficulties caused by the miners' strike in individual care, help and service for the elderly and disabled, and the arrangements for day centres made by the Churches and other voluntary bodies, will be kept in being during the next few years and not just during the next few weeks.
I believe that social benefits in the Common Market countries are very much better than they are here, and that is one reason why I am a convinced supporter of the Common Market. I look forward to the day when the ambition of the Disablement Income Group for an effective disablement income will be realised. I hope my right hon. Friend might be able to consider what on the Continent is a real act of social justice, and that is an extra family allowance for a disabled child, a special family allowance which compensates the mother for some of her difficulties.
I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) has won his battle for the haemophiliacs.


This is a door which is already ajar and which will, with the willing and enlightened help of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, be pushed still further open.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Simeons) made a variety of interesting points on the employment of the disabled with which I have been deeply concerned. He suggested, in effect, a disablement tax for firms which did not take up their full complement. This happens already in the Federal Republic of Germany and I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to ask his right hon. Friends to consider a similar method here. I also ask my right hon. Friend to consider the possibility of extending the Remploy service to parts of the country which do not have it to help those who cannot be found adequate employment in the open sector.
Many hon. Members have concerned themselves with the constant attendance allowance. Concern has been expressed about cases which one would have thought would obviously qualify and which have not, but I am sure my right hon. Friend and his Department are paying the greatest attention to this.
I conclude by mentioning two problems which I have found to be of great concern in recent months. One is essentially not for my right hon. Friend but for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hope that the purchase tax on pet foods regrettably introduced by the previous Labour Government will be done away with when value-added tax comes into force, particularly in the interests of the blind who rely on guide dogs.
The second matter is a more general problem, the position of geriatric wards in old hospitals. With the introduction of some new hospital schemes the patients and their relatives are concerned that they will be moved outside the ambit where they are known, where they are used to the staff and are within easy distance for visits. I hope that these changes in our hospitals will not bear too harshly on individual cases and that those geriatric wards concerned will be run down rather than moved wholesale. I hope that further consideration can be given by my right hon. Friend's enlightened Department to the question of

keeping elderly married geriatric patients together in the same hospital.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. Pardoe: I do not wish in any criticisms I make of the Government to speak in bitterness. As one of the three all-party vice-chairmen of the Disablement Income Group I have long learnt that one gets far more done for disabled people by a non-partisan approach than by bitter criticism. I am thankful for what has already been done, but since the job of an Opposition hon. Member is to push the Government, of whatever political persuasion, along it is in that spirit that I shall vote against the Government tonight.
The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act provides theoretically very well indeed for the disabled. It has had a great deal of effect, but its failures perhaps were inevitable and to a certain extent built into the Act. Many local authorities have ignored large sections of the Act and claim that they are ignoring them through lack of funds. Local authorities are perfectly entitled to plead poverty. Although it has been said that the Act is backed by the authority of the Government, unfortunately it has not been backed with any considerable amount of cash, and it is this lack of hard cash that has been the problem. This is a general problem which we face in imposing responsibilities on local authorities without giving them the money to carry them out. We take our responsibilities in the House too lightly in this respect.
Only this week I have received a plaintive cry for help from the director of social services for the County of Cornwall. He says that he has been embarrassed lately by statements to the effect that the Secretary of State has made large sums of money available to local authorities to expand the social services. The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act is merely one means by which the Government have imposed responsibilities on local authorities.
A great deal has been made recently of the £228 million which is apparently available for improving social services generally. The Government have accepted that, for rate support grant purposes, expenditure by local authorities on social services will expand by 10·4 per cent.


within an overall increase in local authority expenditure of 4·9 per cent. The director of social services points out:
When it is remembered that the local authorities, in addition to their existing duties and services, are required to implement the Children and Young Persons Act, 1969, Sections 13 and 15, newly brought into effect, of the Health Services and Public Health Act, 1968 and the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970, it will be seen that 10·4 per cent. cannot be expected to go very far.
Parliament must will the means. It is no good hon. Members and Governments believing that they can impose a burden on the rates because the rates are simply another form of taxation. Rates are an inefficient form of taxation on which to impose social security and welfare burdens of this sort. They are, after all, neither a tax on actual income nor a tax on actual expenditure. They are a ghost tax.
I hope that the Minister recognises my view of the Government's performance in this whole sphere, particularly in regard to the attendance allowance, bearing in mind my response to his right hon. Friend when I asked him a Question on 21st December last. On that occasion I urged him to widen the regulations of eligibility and said:
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that thousands of people will be grateful for the attendance allowance…may I say that the right hon. Gentleman can claim credit for that and that I thank him for it?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st December, 1971; Vol. 828, c. 1284.]
A number of questions arise in connection with this allowance. For example, there is more to it than widening the regulations. Is the interpretation of the present regulations in keeping with the spirit which Parliament intended when it passed the Act? In other words, whatever regulations we lay down must be interpreted by someone. Often they are interpreted by doctors, either the Department's doctors in respect of war pensions or a panel of doctors who presumably have special and, I imagine, secret instructions as to how they shall proceed.
Are not the Department's doctors and the doctors working in the panels making these tests too harsh? I believe that they are, and I fear that not sufficiently often do they give claimants the benefit of the doubt. Hon. Members come up against this when dealing with war pension cases. I feel that what I have said

is particularly true of our treatment of Far East prisoners of war, towards whom we are behaving far more harshly than are most countries with a similar problem.
Many doctors have an unfortunate determination to abide by previous decisions. A recent case that was brought to my attention highlights this point, and the case was brought to my attention not by the individual concerned but by the doctor. Mr. X suffered a stroke five years ago, since when he has been paralysed down the right side of his body. In his doctor's words, he is
entirely dependent on his wife for his most rudimentary physical needs.
His application for an attendance allowance was refused. The doctor summed up what in his view were his patient's needs in these words:
He is entirely dependent for even the most rudimentary physical needs. However, because she"—
his wife—
does not have to get up repeatedly every night, the claim appears to fall outside the strict interpretation of the regulations for Constant Attendance Allowance".
The medical report on behalf of the Attendance Allowance Board stated: "it is noted in the first medical report…that attention at night is once or twice a week for help with urination or after taking laxatives, and with turning over in bed; viewing the evidence as a whole, therefore, it is considered that he does not ordinarily require prolonged or repeated attention during the night."
Hon. Members regularly come across cases of this sort. We appreciate that the line must be drawn somewhere. I am questioning not just whether the regulations are right but whether they are being interpreted in a way that is in keeping with the spirit which Parliament intended when the Act was passed. The Secretary of State needs to watch his doctors. It is extremely difficult for the layman to do this because doctors tend to stick together.
As my Question of last December indicated, I believe that the regulations should now be widened. When he replied to my Question the Secretary of State said that we had to go through the first stage before going on to the second. He referred to the first stage as being the experimental one. Very well. But when does the next stage arrive? When is the experiment sufficiently advanced for the


right hon. Gentleman to be able to conclude that we can move on to the next stage?
I do not necessarily argue for the same sum to be paid. Perhaps the regulations should be altered to cover day or night attendance and, for example, not necessarily to pay as much as for day and night attendance. This is, therefore, not just a question of multiplying the existing allowance by the number of people whom we think will be brought into the net.
What of the future? We have been told that there are probably 3 million handicapped people. We must, therefore, consider two factors. The first is the extra cost of living which the disabled have to bear, and the second is the loss of income incurred by someone who is disabled. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) developed this point extremely well and explained how unfavourably disability income and constant attendance allowance compare with the industrial injuries provisions.
In the Government's plans for reforming the whole of our social security provision we are told that they intend to make retirement Pensions and widows' pensions earnings related. I disagree with this, but we can develop this issue on another occasion. I recall developing it ad nausetam in the debates on the Grossman Bill, which were largely futile.
If the Government are to say that retirement and widows' pensions should be earnings related, can they deny that benefits for the disabled should not be earnings related? I believe that they should be so related, though from my reading of the Government's plans it seems clear that this will not happen.
We must accept that when a housewife becomes too disabled to carry on, either temporarily or permanently, her job as a housewife, her family suffers a substantial financial loss and that this must be made up within our social security provision.
Several hon. Members have referred to the problems faced by kidney patients, and in the recent electricity crisis their plight has been brought home to us.
There was tomorrow to have been a sale at Telford by the Ministry of Defence of a large number of Government surplus small portable generators.

I note from an advertisement in today's Daily Express that the sale has been cancelled. Presumably it has been decided that the generators are needed for priority use in the Government service. I suggest that one priority which the Department should bear in mind is to have these generators on tap for the use of home kidney patients when or if there is a crisis such as the one from which we have suffered recently.
Much is being done to help the disabled but a lot more needs to be done, even under the present state of our law. I wonder whether the total effect of all our provision in this respect—Government, local authority and voluntary—is being effectively co-ordinated? We need a commission for the disabled to coordinate this effort and ensure that our total provision is used to the best possible effect for the disabled people of Britain.

7.50 p.m.

Mr. Robert Boscawen: I intend to take up one or two of the points made by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) later in my speech, especially his comments about the working of the attendance allowance. Before doing that, however, I wish to say what a privilege it is to take part in a debate where all hon. Members share the desire to help the severely disabled to live as far as possible an independent, reasonable and happy life. I am glad to have been called in such a debate.
There will never be enough money to do all that we want. Certainly there will never be enough resources or manpower. Despite that, I think that the speech of the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) was a little unfair to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, especially when the hon. Lady suggested that my right hon. Friend had shown a degree of inertia and a lack of action. The very opposite is true, and that is shown by the fact that 74,000 people have taken up the attendance allowance under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, and the fact that more than 300,000 have taken up the invalidity allowance.
The attendance allowance cash benefits have brought very valuable assistance to many people. But it would be foolish to pretend that all is well. We all have experience of individual cases where the


Act has worked unfairly. There are fringe cases where individuals do not fit in. I have in mind what has been called the day and night qualification, certain qualifications for children, and so on. However, I hope that my right hon. Friend will not rush in to plug these individual anomalies. I should prefer to regard the allowance as an experiment in depth and to give it a thorough examination after it has been working for a year or so.
That is not to say that attention should not be given to the possibility of applying different rates to the allowance. Would it be possible, for example, to have percentage rates rather on the lines of those for disability pensions, so that someone who was slightly disabled got a smaller percentage of the allowance'? I hope that my right hon. Friend will examine the attendance allowance carefully after it has been working for a period.
My second point concerns the invalidity allowance, which, as I said, 300,000 people have taken up. I should like to hear a breakdown of the age groups among those who receive it. There are different rates for different age groups, and when this matter was being considered in Committee some of us were not convinced that this was the right way of going about it.
Then there is the cut-off point for those persons, within two years of their retirement, who do not get the carry-forward of the benefit throughout their retirement. May we be told how many have applied for benefit only to be told that they fall into that category and cannot have it? Those hon. Members who served on the Committee would like to see how the Act is working in practice in that respect.
We have heard a great deal about Amelia Harris in this debate. But there has not been much mention of the White Paper on Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped, which puts the emphasis on residential rather than on hospital care. This is a very remarkable report. It presents the social service departments of local authorities with an enormous challenge, and this relates to some of the comments which have been made about the directors of social services of the local

authorities. A great many jobs are being pushed on to them. They need a very high degree of management skill. I hope that the Department will give them all the assistance possible to carry out the very full job of implementing all these various reports.
There is a danger that the local authorities may get some of their services out of balance. They may be spending too much on the mentally handicapped, for example. Heaven knows, there is enough to do. But if they put too much of their resources to this end, they will not be spending enough on the chronically sick and on the many other services that they have to run. I agree with the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) about the need for some means of screening what the local authorities are doing in the social services. There is no test to ensure that they are carrying out what Parliament requires of them. Although I do not think that the figures asked for at the beginning of the debate necessarily are the right way to go about these matters, I believe that we should devise some scheme whereby we can test to our satisfaction what individual authorities are doing for the physically and mentally handicapped.
We ought to be looking more at the need for voluntary helpers. I wonder whether we persuade a sufficient number of our young people to go in for this type of voluntary work. I wonder whether schools and other education establishments do enough to show children what voluntary work exists, what jobs there are, and what the needs are. One hears too often in one's constituency that there are not enough people to do certain jobs. By that I do not mean necessarily the professional jobs, though I accept that they are very short of staff. I have in mind especially such voluntary jobs as home help, and so on. More needs to be done on the education side to tell children about the variety of jobs that they can do in their spare time when they go out into the world.
The Government are trying to do an enormous amount in the social services in every field, in terms of the extra requirements of widows, of war pensioners, of the chronic sick, community care, hostels for the mentally handicapped, community hostels and so on. It


is all going on at once. In the past progress has not been rapid enough. But it would be less than fair of right hon. and hon. Members opposite to ignore all that is being done by my right hon. Friend.

7.59 p.m.

Mr. Fred Evans: The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) spoke about the necessity for this House, having once legislated, to see that the instruments to carry out its legislation perform those functions properly.
I begin my brief contribution by drawing attention to one organisation which has shown just how much compassion can go into the operation of this legislation. I refer to the Post Office Engineering Workers' Union in Wales, the members of which volunteered in their own time to install telephones for all disabled people who had been accorded this amenity by the county councils. They did it free of charge and thus cut the installation costs by half. If mat attitude can be instilled into all the instruments under this great Act, great progress will be made.
Reference has been made to the harshness of the Motion and to the fact that there is a three-line Whip, the implication being that the Motion reflects some of the deep and bitter ideological gulf that has raged between the two sides of the House recently. This is not so. I was fortunate enough to serve on the Standing Committee which considered the Act when it was a Bill. On that Standing Committee we were, for once, like a band of happy brothers and one relative happy sister. The Bill went through all its stages without the necessity of a Division.
The Motion, and the fact that there is a three-line Whip, arises from our deep sense of disappointment and frustration. Hopes in the House run very high, not only amongst those who were members of that Standing Committee but amongst many others. Those high hopes were shared by disabled people throughout the country, who looked upon the Act as a charter which would liberate lives which had been restricted for many years.
We on these benches, because the Bill was sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), felt this disappoint

ment keenly. Like hon. Members opposite, we know that many of our constituents are plunging back into the slough of despair. This is hard to accept by anyone who has worked selflessly and idealistically for people who are in this unfortunate position.
This is particularly so in my area—South Wales—because, in addition to the normal incidence of disablement, we have the mining industry. In one year 83,000 reported accidents were sustained in the mining industry throughout the whole of Britain. Forty thousand men are drawing disability allowance for pneumoconiosis. Many thousands more are assessed at a very low level by medical boards for disability pension, but as they reach the age of 45 to 50 they become disabled to a considerable degree.
Some of us have lived closer to this problem than others. This is a matter of geography. We claim no virtue for being able to talk about the subject in greater depth or with greater compassion. It is just the fact that it is before our eyes all the time. For some curious reason, in my part of the country the general morbidity rate is higher than it is in many other areas. In the Welsh valley where I live the incidence of spina bifida is considerably higher than the national average.
I hope that those who have referred to the Motion as though it were couched in terms of bitterness will accept that for people like me it is framed in terms of frustration and disappointment.
Two things which emerge from the debate are, first, the non-activation of a proper system of registration. I do not accept that long-term sampling is the right method. I would rather there were a saturation study, even if it meant sorting out marginal cases by more detailed examination later. Why not, as was done in my area, use district councils as agents of the county welfare authorities and get them to use their monthly bulletins to bring these matters to the notice of all people in their localities?
Why not enlist the voluntary organisations to undertake a blanket study, making door-to-door calls if necessary? This has been done in many areas. In my area local councils have done all this amongst their council tenants and are now busily engaged on the rest of the


population. In some areas it has been done by sixth forms. The hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) spoke of the desirability of getting youngsters involved in these matters. This is a good way of getting the younger generation to do social field work and of bringing them face to face with problems which perhaps they did not know, even existed. It may be considered emotionally cruel to bring youngsters face to face with these problems, but in general it is a good thing.
The second point which emerges from the debate and which we on this side are very critical about is that there has been a failure to ginger up councils which have failed in their duty under the legislation. If we are not careful we may be in the situation which we were in with education, when grammar education depended on accident of birth or residence. In one town 12 per cent. of children went to grammar schools. In Wales 45 per cent. of children went to grammar school. In Gateshead a boy had a better chance than a girl of getting to a grammar school. In Oxford a girl had a better chance. Unless we are careful to vet what local authorities are doing, to publish what they are doing and to ginger them up, there will be a growing disparity between areas.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) made a powerful plea for the voluntary organisations. Will the Minister consider supporting and encouraging—not through legislation—schemes such as that introduced by the South Wales Council of Social Services which formed a department for the physically handicapped? The remit of that department is to bring together into one authoritative body a convention of all the voluntary organisations, professional bodies and statutory bodies.
The hon. Member for Wells spoke of the need to bring more people into the social services. The education and training of such people can no longer be left to a good heart. Skill, encouragement and dedication are needed. Educated training is essential if voluntary effort is to maintain its fine record.
When the great Aneurin Bevan framed the National Health Service he did not see it other than as a solid base provided by the State to which the voluntary ser

vices would attach themselves, gather strength from, and grow and flourish. I want the Act to be treated in exactly the same way. Let the Government provide the base. Let them do many of the things which have been suggested today. But let us not erode the tremendous function of the voluntary organisations. Let us give them the necessary base to make them much more effective.
I hope the Minister will encourage the kind of thing that has been done by the South Wales Council of Social Services. As we move into an age of greater material prosperity I hope that we shall also, this House giving the lead, move into an age of greater compassion for our fellow men.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Fred Evans), who has shown that in Wales, too, there is concern about these matters. He spoke of a band of happy brothers, and I must say that the speeches from both sides of the House have confirmed the broad measure of agreement that exists among us, which makes the terms of the Motion more difficult to understand.
I have a great respect for the hon. Lady the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill), who opened the debate, and who understands very well that concern in these matters is shared. I therefore find the hostile wording of her Motion difficult to understand and, in face of the immense steps that were taken by my right hon. Friend, hard to forgive. To complain about the shortcomings in the working of the attendance allowance system or the continuing lack of provision for the chronically sick and disabled in the face of my right hon. Friend's record is to divide the House on a question that should, and does, unite us.
The hon. Lady complained about inflexibility—strange language from a party that did practically nothing for these people during that party's term of office. One swallow in the shape of a Private Member's Bill really does not make a summer. It is equally strange to complain of inflexibility about the attendance allowance when we are still in the first year of its use, when so many of the earliest applications and appeals are still under consideration by the appeal board,


and when my right hon. Friend has indicated his willingness to look sympathetically at the working of the Act and to extend it when we have something to go on.
Many of us acknowledge our disappointment at the way in which the Act is being implemented in some cases. I shall be saying a word about specific examples in a moment. The Secretary of my local Society for Mentally Handicapped Children fairly summed up the situation when she wrote to me in November:
It is early days yet to say that action is needed for in all cases brought to our notice where the application is rejected, we strongly advise the applicants to request a review of their case. But it is not premature to alert all interested persons or bodies to the situation as we see it developing.
The secretary is right; it is early days yet.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) was correct when he suggested that it is important when we come to alter the Act that we get it right and do not rush into changes which provide only a partial solution. The enterprising branch of the Society for Mentally Handicapped Children in my constituency, recognising that what is needed at this stage is information, sent out circulars to all its members. It is interesting, and, I dare say, not unrepresentative, to note that 53 replies to 80 questionnaires revealed that 25 had already received an allowance; 16 had not initially replied; four had been turned down, and the remaining cases had gone to appeal. Generally f find this encouraging.
The principal difficulties in the cases that I have seen arise in two main fields, and I think this is the experience of all hon. Members. First is the overnight definition. Some of us are a little puzzled why cases which do not get by under the phrase
prolonged or repeated attention during the night
do not none the less get in under the phrase
continuous supervision in oder to avoid substantial danger…".
Then there are the clear differences in approach by many doctors. A large number of the cases which have come to my attention where these two factors

throw up distressing anomalies involve mongols. The variety of decisions in these cases is quite bewildering. There seems to be very little logic at all. One parent writes that the only thing that his boy is able to do
is when food is put on a plate for him, he pushes it in his mouth with his hands, but other than that, it is not a case of helping him to do anything, but it has to be done for him. When he is put to bed at around 8 p.m., the chances are that he is still awake at 2 a.m., and probably sitting on the stair landing. This has not give my wife much chance to get some sound sleep in the last 20 years, and does not look very hopeful for the next 20.
He goes on to say:
I, like quite a large number of other people, have every reason to believe that this scheme is a national make-believe'.
I think he is wrong. I do not think one can say that a scheme is a national make-believe when it has already given benefit to 74,000 people, or 63 per cent. of the applicants, although one can understand the feelings of someone whose son is described by a doctor on the application form as a low-grade mentally defective, a child for whom the local authority has recognised the seriousness of his condition by offering to take him into their hostel and care for him.
I have another case, again a mongol, classified as mentally severely subnormal, again with the habit of keeping his parents awake at night, who requires constant attention, and who, if they attempt to stay up with friends, tries to take action which endangers the household, but it is no more serious than the case to which I have just referred and which on appeal has been approved.
It is indeed difficult to understand why these discrepancies occur. Partly the trouble arises, as the hon. Member for Halifax pointed out, because of the variety of medical reports, and in particular, because of the inadequacy and shortcomings of the present form that is in use. It is important that we should give very clear guidance to doctors on this matter and produce a form that really gives a picture of the case as it is and does not request brief answers by means of a tick or a "Yes" or "No" to a number of summary questions.
The matter that requires the most urgent revision is this question of overnight attendance. My right hon. Friend promised earlier that he would move


on to the extension of the scheme as soon as he could, and I am sure that it is in this area that we must move first.
I want to make two other brief points. The first is to emphasise the urgent need for an extension of the building programme for hospitals and hostels close to the families of patients. In rural areas such as my constituency the lack of these facilities is still acute. Parents may devote care to their handicapped children while they themselves are alive and well enough to do so. They dread the day when they will die. They fear that their children will then be taken away to some vast and remote institution far from their relatives, their homes and the countryside with which they are familiar. Even while they live they fear a temporary illness or an absence from home which will prevent their looking after their children. New short- or long-term hostels are, therefore, urgently required, as are the day centres referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight).
I greatly welcome the additional provision for the younger chronic sick to which my right hon. Friend referred, the increase in the number of units from 28 to 60, and the number of beds from 700 to 1,500. In particular, in my part of the world I welcome the new assessment unit in West Wales, as I welcome also the new 30-bed unit for adults in my constituency.
My constituents are grateful for the substantial improvements which my right hon. Friend has already achieved. They are in no mood to condemn but rather, recognising that they have a sympathetic Secretary of State who seems to have a magic touch with the Treasury, they look forward to more.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. Philip Whitehead: I take up what was said by the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Nicholas Edwards) only to the extent of saying that I, too, appreciate the difficulty, which he overcame by being partisan in declaring that this is not a partisan debate, of bringing matters of direct party concern into dispute.
We all agree that this is not a subject on which hon. Members should speak with the voice of party. Very largely, this is

a cross-party debate, in which genuine social concern has been aired by almost all hon. Members who have spoken. The Secretary of State explained in opening why he feels that he must make haste slowly. We must all listen carefully to the case which he made and criticise carefully where it seems to us that haste could be made with rather more urgency and zeal than has been apparent so far. But we all accept what the right hon. Gentleman said in terms of the time span within which the general problem of disablement has come to be recognised; the period within which, in other words, the disabled have come to be seen as normal people with abnormal problems rather than as a problem group who must be shunned or ignored.
The right hon. Gentleman was right to pay tribute to the late Megan du Boisson, who made all of us so much more aware of the problem. In the Palace of Westminster itself we have only in the last few years come to recognise and cater for the problems of disability and the needs of those hon. Members among us who are disabled. I think that the right hon. Gentleman was, perhaps, a little less than fair to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) and his Bill, which could not have passed into law without the generous help given to it in time and so on by the Labour Government in 1970.
The first two points which I wish to make go to the question of definition raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) in his brilliant and moving speech. He talked of the problems of mobility and communication. I should be the first to acknowledge that what the Secretary of State has said on the problem of mobility is to be widely welcomed. If a chronically disabled person wishes to get about and can get about, it is an extra limb to him to have a motor-powered vehicle; and the extra provisions announced today by the right hon. Gentleman are much to be welcomed.
I was, however, depressed to hear the Secretary of State being somewhat sceptical about the value, other than the social value, of a telephone. All of us have become aware in talking to our constituents of the extent to which the telephone is now regarded as a general


facility to which people are far more accustomed than they were a few years ago. To dismiss it and say that its provision in this context is not appropriate or it may have little value apart from its social use is, I feel, harmful in two ways. Firstly, because those local authorities which are dragging their feet on Section 2(1)(h) of the 1970 Act will be discouraged, and, second, because it betrays in the Minister an attitude which one can only describe as that of "pre-electronic man".
We are living in an age of electronic communication now, when people accept the telephone almost as a replacement of the letter as a means for getting in touch with others. For the disabled, who often need to get in touch with medical help or with others who may be able to come to their aid in an emergency, the telephone is of special value. To dismiss the use of the telephone in the way suggested by the Secretary of State is, I believe. damaging.

Mr. John Golding: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Post Office engineers in Wales have offered to provide their services free of charge to fit telephones, which has made it possible for the Post Office to charge half the price to local authorities, but this development has been held up because the Secretary of State's Department has stated that there is no industrial injuries cover for the men who do that voluntary work?

Mr. Whitehead: Yes, my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Fred Evans) has already made that point. All of us have noted that the Post Office Engineering Union has shown a rather greater sweep of imagination than have the Secretary of State and his Department.
We can count the cost of such a provision only when we have the general register, which has often been discussed—it has been discussed again today—but which is still to come. Until we have a general register of the elderly disabled living alone—and, eventually, I hope, a register of all elderly people living alone—we cannot know how much it would cost to provide the telephone in the circumstances which hon. Members have described. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether he can at some stage

put before the House his Department's estimate of the cost of providing telephones in this way. Only when we have such an estimate can we as a House properly decide whether it is the sort of priority which should come before other things which are now being provided.
All of us have difficult cases in our constituencies—the hon. Member for Pembroke has raised three—which show the limitations of the attendance allowance as at present defined to be far too narrow. If application is made for the attendance allowance, one has to be able to show that the person for whom the claim is made is
so severely disabled physically or mentally that he requires from another person in connection with his bodily functions frequent attention throughout the day and prolonged or repeated attention during the night"—
the word "and" is heavily underlined—and it appears to be that consideration rather than the consideration of disablement being so severe that the person
requires continual supervision from another person in order to avoid substantial danger to himself or others
which is applied.
All of us have cases of people dealt with in these circumstances on the basis of grievously misconceived assessments. I have three which I wish to put briefly to the House. First, I take the case of a constituent who came to see me the other day. He has cared for his severely mentally disordered daughter, now 38 years of age, who is crippled also and has been from birth, with severe problems of all kinds. Her claim for the attendance allowance has been turned down.
As the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) said, these are proud people; they do not easily make a claim for the allowance at all. Quite often they have looked after their children for a lifetime, in this case for longer than my lifetime. The father who came to see me realises now that, in his middle seventies, he cannot go on in this way. Simply to be told that his daughter, when she is asleep, is not likely to need the constant attention she has to have in every waking moment, and has had for 38 years, is not good enough.
I have had two other cases of ineligibility where the people concerned are very severely disabled indeed. In


one case a lady, who has been deaf from birth and, therefore, has had only vestigial speech from birth, and is now blind, cannot get the allowance. Another case concerns a lady who is also deaf and blind. Her husband is partially disabled and has had to leave his job to look after her. He is a man of 60 who is try to cope.
The director of social services in Derby wrote to me about the second case, that of Mrs. O'Brien. He said:
As you will know Parliament laid down the regulations governing the Attendance Allowance and this so far has been limited to those people who require repeated attendance at night'. It is our opinion that a person would not, therefore, be granted an attendance allowance simply on the ground that they were both deaf and blind, although I agree that you could very well argue that this is wrong…You are no doubt aware that there are many severely disabled people who do not qualify for the attendance allowance because of the very restricted criteria used in the assessment and I suggest to you, for your consideration, that the matter might very well be raised in the House of Commons.
Most of us who have progressive directors of social services have had that kind of letter. Perhaps too much has been said tonight about those local authorities which have been dragging their feet and too little about the directors of social services who wish to do more but find the provisions of the Act as it stands unnecessarily restricting. If the provisions of the Act were widened the criteria of disability could be stretched to take in more of these cases. Even though, as the Disablement Income Group suggests, the price to be paid is perhaps that about 250,000 people will come within the scope of the Act, that is still an insignificant price compared to the institutional care that these people would probably require if in the absence of a satisfactory provision of the attendance allowance they were taken into hospital.
It is more important even than that, because these people not merely deserve to receive the attendance allowance but also deserve the right to live out the rest of their lives with as great a sense of their own independence and with as much human dignity as possible at home. That is possible only at home. To provide the allowance for them and for those who have been caring for them, and have grown sick and the old in their service at home would be a far better

service for the Government to provide than hospital care could possibly be.

8.30 p.m.

Dame Joan Vickers: I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate and to pay a special tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, because most of the cases I have raised have come before him and I have had extremely sympathetic replies. It is extremely difficult to implement the Act and there will be differences which will have to be considered in the future, but these will bring a gradual understanding of the problem.
It is essential to realise, as I do, having once been an elected member of a local authority, that local authorities have different priorities in different areas. It is therefore extremely difficult to get comparable statistics for the whole country.
I was interested in the suggestion that disabled people were second-class citizens. We were told last week that women were second-class citizens, so we make a good group together, and so I do not feel that this is such a handicap as was suggested.
In spite of the unemployment in this country at the moment, as was stated in answer to a Parliamentary Question, in four weeks in November, 1971, 4,800 disabled people were found jobs. I would like to pay a special tribute therefore to the disablement resettlement officers who are doing a very good job. We must remember Mrs. Megan du Boisson, who was herself disabled and had to go about in a wheelchair, because if it had not been for her I do not think many of us would be discussing this matter today. I know two women who are both in wheelchairs. One is very successfully acting as a foster-mother and the other is looking after her five children, also very successfully, so if a little help is given this keeps the families together.
The question of the Disabled Living Foundation has been raised. The hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) suggested that we might have an exhibition here. There is already an exhibition and I suggest that hon. Members should visit it, because they would find there everything they want. I understand that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have already visited it. I hope it may be possible for more relations of disabled


people and doctors and teachers to visit the exhibition, because they would find tremendous help in being able to tell the disabled what can be provided, and all without pressure from manufacturers. All are articles of genuine use to disabled people.
On the question of architecture, I was very interested in the book "Designing for the Disabled", by Mr. Selwyn Goldsmith, a very important document dealing with both public and private buildings. More architects could be trained along the lines suggested in that book.
It is worth considering how much is done by voluntary organisations in certain areas. In Plymouth, for example, we have a Cheshire Home and a voluntary home for the disabled. We also have flatlets for the disabled, where meals can be cooked for them, and we have special transport arrangements. One of our voluntary workers is embarking on the provision of a special public house just outside Plymouth where disabled people can go and feel quite at ease. It is to be called The Wounded Soldier. When they go there everything will be made convenient for them as disabled people want to be able to enjoy life and be independent.
I hope that when the new pensions are introduced there will be more connection between the pensions given to the disabled and those given to the ordinary able-bodied person. There is also a need for a congenitally-disabled person to have a pension of his own when he comes of age.
I had the pleasure not long ago of opening a hostel in Oxford for both mentally-handicapped and disabled people who work in a local factory, together with a number who do not need to live in a hostel. Some also live in a small house on their own with just daily supervision. I consider that we should aim for more such hostels and small homes from which people can go out daily to work.
Does the Sports Council yet have a disabled person among its members? The disabled have been asking for representation for some time.
The National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases, which has had a grant of nearly £200,000, is doing excellent work

and will report in March. Is the money it has received sufficient to carry on research? It is much better if we can prevent the diseases than wait until people have become crippled with them.
The Biomechanical Research and Development Unit is also doing an excellent job in providing a much better type of artificial limb. I hope that the work will be continued and that the unit has enough money to improve the mobility of those who have lost arms or legs.
There are many necessities and priorities to think of, but I want to mention only two points in conclusion. I begin with autistic children. Most of the work of educating such children is still done by voluntary organisations. I have heard of cases of the attendance allowance being refused in regard to autistic children. An autistic child is very restless. Often he wanders about the house at night and he can never be left alone in the house, day or night. The allowance has been given in some cases and not in others. Where is the dividing line drawn? Is it a question of age or the degree of disability? The matter is causing considerable worry to many parents.
Secondly, there is the question of children who will never grow up as physically normal people. I was very interested recently in a book by Dr. Joan McMichael about parents being told that their child was physically or mentally disabled. A great deal of skill is needed to integrate the child and the mother. Often parents cannot face looking after such children without help, and therefore there are far too many children in hospitals. It is very important that parents should be members of a therapeutic team of doctors, social workers and others contributing towards the decisions affecting their children's future. There would be fewer such children in the hospitals if this were so, and sometimes it would help parents not to reject their child.
The efforts of people in aiding the mentally handicapped are becoming more and more recognised, and I am glad that one of our organisers in Plymouth was included in the New Year's Honours List for her work. The more this type of work is appreciated by the community, the better.
We now have to consider our new links with the European Economic Community in the tying up of various matters like children's allowances and pensions. I think we need to hold a conference so that the member countries of the newly enlarged E.E.C. give the same money values in allowances for the disabled and so on. If people are allowed to move from one country to another within the Community, it will be difficult for them to budget if one country pays a certain amount and another pays less. This should be considered. The Health and Social Services Committee of the Council of Europe is to hold a conference shortly on the drug problem, and if the Government would agree it might be appropriate to have a conference to deal with the question of these allowances and pensions so that we will be on a par throughout.

8.41 p.m.

Mr. Frank McElhone: I hope that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) will forgive me if I do not follow her line of argument. Suffice it to say that I share her point of view with regard to the Sports Council and representation on consultative bodies. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), who takes a keen interest in this subject, also wishes to contribute to the debate, so I intend to concentrate on the problems of Scotland. There was a debate just before the turn of the year on this subject, and I am afraid that it turned into a rather heated and nasty debate because of the refusal of the Secretary of State to answer any questions about Scotland. I hope I can have an assurance from the Under-Secretary of State that, despite the presence of a Scottish Minister on the Front Bench, he will give use some replies about Scotland when he winds up the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) said that this subject should not be a party matter because there is concern on both sides of the House. I would agree if it were not for the shabby treatment to which Scotland has been subjected as a barren area in social work for the sick and disabled. When in opposition the Secretary of State for Scotland, according to a Scottish Office Press notice,

had been pressing the Government to undertake a survey to help to identify and locate the disabled and chronic sick".
He has said that there are about 108,000 substantially handicapped people in Scotland today.
I was lucky enough to have a team in my constituency which carried out a door-to-door survey which the Central Council for the Disabled said was the first of its kind in the United Kingdom. In a non-party spirit, I sent a copy of its findings first to the Secretary of State for Scotland, thinking that I could be of some help to him because I also took part in the survey. I wrote to him saying that together with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) I would like to discuss with him the survey and its impact both for Glasgow and the rest of Scotland. In a letter on 11th November, 1971, the Secretary of State replied by referring to an early-day Motion I had put down, and said:
I should add that after the intemperate terms of your motion No. 568 of the last session and its reference to me, I am not sure that I ought to agree to see you at all.
That was because I was a signatory of a Motion, however intemperate, criticising the Secretary of State for his failure to give answers, and he has since refused to give the answers for which Scotland is waiting.
One might be forgiven for carrying on in that intemperate fashion, but, trying to be non-partisan, I wrote another letter to the right hon. Gentleman to say that I should like to discuss the situation with him, accompanied by my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe. We went to see the right hon. Gentleman just before the end of the year and we put to him suggestions, including the use of unemployed people to undertake a door-to-door survey such as that in the Gorbals. We are now reaching the end of February and I am still awaiting a reply from the right hon. Gentleman. If that is not enough to make one partisan, I do not know what is.
There is a myth in Scotland that the present Secretary of State is deeply concerned about the disabled. As someone who was closely involved with a team investigating disablement, I can say that that is not so. On every provision of the Act as it applies to Scotland we have


had virtually no assistance from the Secretary of State. That is true of research and development, for instance. Strathclyde University, the former Royal College of Science and Technology, is a first-class institution for research into technological help for disabled people, but the amount spent on general medical research in Scotland is £130,000 and of that only 19 per cent. goes on research for the disabled. I am not the best mathematician at this time of night, but I make that about £25,000 a year on research and development. One could not buy a decent back court wash house for £25,000.
The Secretary of State for Social Services spoke about the provision of assessment units and research centres. I sought to intervene to see whether we could have such a unit in Scotland, and one hon. Member said that he was glad one was already in Wales. I hope we shall be told tonight that we are to have an assessment unit in Scotland. I know of a hospital in Glasgow which is crying out for such a unit. According to the Government survey, out of 5 million people in Scotland 240.000 are disabled, a very high proportion that justifies Scotland having its own assessment unit.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office (Mr. Hector Monro): I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to be unfair to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who has taken a personal interest in the disabled and played a particular part in the change in the transport arrangements for the disabled which was announced today. He is playing his full part in the increased expenditure on all the work in hospital and health services and so on.

Mr. McElhone: I am sorry that I gave way, because that intervention was no help to me or to any other Scottish Member, and it took up valuable time.
One of the most distressing features of this problem is that young chronically sick people are incarcerated in geriatric wards. According to the figures for Scotland, a total of 427 are in that position. It is a crying shame that people who are suffering physical pain should also be subjected to the mental torture of incarcerations in these wards for the elderly.

I have no doubt that the position is similar in England and Wales, but I am concerned that a total of 427 people in Scotland—according to the figures available to 1970—should be trapped in these places.
I visited one of these establishments and found it most distressing. The Secretary of State quoted four examples; I shall quote one. It is the case of a paratrooper who has lost both his legs. His family found it impossible to look after him. I found this brave hero trapped in a ward for geriatric and senile people. To what greater torture could anyone be condemned than to live there year after year until he passes away?
I ask the Under-Secretary to have some regard to people who have the dual handicap of blindness and deafness. I do not see why Scottish children should have to go to Shrewsbury, in England, to be catered for. I am sure that with the money available from the Home and Health Department budget a place could be found in Scotland. In reply to a Question on 22nd November the Secretary of State for Scotland said that there were very few of this type of handicapped child. That is all the more reason for finding a place in Scotland for these people.
One thing that stood out from my survey was the sincere desire of people to look after themselves. That desire could be aided by the provision of home helps. I recently put down a Question about obtaining assistance in the shape of home helps, and the predecessor of the Under-Secretary told me that there had been a 25 per cent. increase in the rate support grant, which would help to provide home helps, but I found that that 25 per cent. increase amounted to £5 million to cover the next three years. Considering that the cost is rising by 10 per cent. each year, that figure does not represent many home helps.
I would not be partisan this evening if it were not clear that the Government—who are spending about £3,000 million a year on defence, and who gave £350 million in October, 1970, to the surtax payers and corporation tax payers—have their priorities wrong. We are entirely right in voting against them in the Lobby this evening.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. James Hill: We are all grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the new provisions for disabled drivers. A paraplegic in my constituency writes to me regularly. He has a kind of love-hate relationship with his three-wheel vehicle. If those three-wheel vehicles can be phased out I know one constituent who will be very happy.
The Motion, which I can only regard as a censure Motion, refers to
the long delay in implementing important provisions".
When I read that I thought that the best person to ask about it was my own director of social services. I got on the telephone to Southampton and had a word with him. He was quite put out. He said "What do they mean by long delay'?" He then went through a long list of the things on which he had been working very hard and of which he was very proud. He particularly mentioned Section 21, the badge scheme. He said that not only had his people got it off the ground but that it had been fully implemented—that is, in a city of 230,000—in just over seven weeks. They did it by massive publicity in the local newspaper and by word of mouth through the voluntary organisations.
The director of social services was quite perturbed that we were not taking note of the improved transport provisions that he had managed to obtain for Southampton. Apparently, a year ago there were three buses for transporting the disabled; now there are six. The home help service in Southampton has expanded by 12 per cent. in the last year. He was also put out over the registration of the disabled. Only four areas in the country are making a 100 per cent. survey, he told me. They are Chester, Coventry, Isle of Wight and Southampton. On 1st March the voluntary organisations in Southampton will begin the survey. Many organisations are helping—the Round Table, the Council of Churches, one of our largest grammar schools, King Edward's, and the college of technology. Altogether there will be over 200 volunteers to carry out this vital work.
The director also mentioned the rapid rate at which Southampton was managing to get finance from the Depart

ment of Health and Social Security. We talk about Ministers being reluctant to release money but he mentioned the following provisions: a hostel for the mentally handicapped, £78,000; a day centre for the mentally ill, £80,000; a training centre in the eastern part of the city, £77,000; a hostel for residential care of the mentally handicapped, £75,000; a day centre for 18 mentally handicapped children, £25,000. He added that this was only part of the programme and mentioned two day nurseries being built, one in the centre of the city and another on the western outskirts. I asked whether day nurseries had much to do with the mentally handicapped. He said "Yes, we give absolute priority to the children of disabled parents."
Local authorities are not just sitting back and taking no notice. The home help service could well be improved but it will be recalled that on 5th November we had a debate on housing when I said that the Habinteg Housing Association had informed me that there was little suitable accommodation in the United Kingdom for the severely disabled. This is perhaps where we could help some of the disabled to look after themselves. We must have purpose-built accommodation. I asked my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment whether he could direct that 2 per cent. of local authoritiy housing stock should be purpose-built for the disabled. By that I do not mean that we have to find the disabled person and then build the accommodation. We can build accommodation with wide corridors and doors, with facilities for hoists and ramps, and they can still be let to perfectly normal families until the need arises for a disabled person.
In his reply my hon. Friend said:
I question whether it would be right for the central Government to impose such a mandatory requirement on local authorities. I hope that it will not prove to be necessary. I certainly think that it would be wrong to impose such a mandatory requirement in advance of the study to which I have referred."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th November, 1971; Vol. 825, c. 611.]
I have no hesitation in saying that when the 100 per cent. survey is completed the numbers that will be revealed as requireing purpose-built housing will be astronomical. I firmly believe that when local authorities get down to the problem it


will be seen to be only the tip of the iceberg. I ask my hon. Friend to impress upon his colleagues the sheer necessity for implementing as much as possible of Section 3.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Morris: There have been many notable speeches in this debate. The House is often at its best when the problems of the long-term sick and disabled are under discussion.
Somerset Maugham said
To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
The Prime Minister's Amendment is drafted with more subtlety than simplicity, but it cannot hide the Government's failure to be as good as we should have liked them to be. The Government have congratulated themselves in the Amendment on
the rising provision for…aids for the disabled".
As the Secretary of State knows, that statement is villainously complacent and totally unjustified. Indeed, there is much in the Amendment which is purely schmooze. [HON. MEMBERS: "What?"] I hope that that is not a new parliamentary word. It means, as the right hon. Gentleman may be aware, moonshine.
The Secretary of State always gives the impression that he has a great deal to say and too little time in which to say it. He always appears extremely impatient to get on with his speech. Yet he never provides any time for discussion of the problems of the long-term sick and disabled. Nor do his right hon. Friends. He should have had the good grace today to thank the Opposition for finding time for this important debate. The right hon. Gentleman expresses surprise. But why? On the last occasion that we had a full debate on the problems of the chronically sick and disabled, it was due to the luck of my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) in the Private Members' ballot.
It is shameful that the Government have not even provided time to debate the extremely important report of Amelia Harris. It is not for the Secretary of State to give the impression that he is deeply concerned, more deeply than we are, with the problems of the chronically

sick and disabled. If that were so, he would have persuaded the Leader of the House to find Government time to discuss these pressing problems.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) referred to a very disturbing case. I now have the correspondence in that case. It was said to her in a letter dated 14th January from the Secretary of State:
In Mr. Rimmer's case, the replacement of his sickness benefit of £5 by invalidity benefit of £7 means that after allowing for the increase in the supplementary benefit scale rate, his income was £1·75 above his assessed requirements, and this was why he no longer qualified for a prescription exemption certificate on income grounds.
The House will agree that my right hon. Friend was eminently right in implying that the Government's left hand does not appear to know what their right hand is doing. They give something to the chronically sick with one hand and take it away with the other.
The hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) rightly emphasised that three-wheeled vehicles are, for many very severely disabled people, unsafe and unstable and should be replaced by four-wheeled vehicles. The House should know that the four-wheeled vehicle need be no more expensive per vehicle than the three-wheeler. Motor manufacturers with whom Graham Hill brought me into contact affirm that they could produce a four-wheeled vehicle, with adaptations for severely disabled people, just as cheaply as a three-wheeler. The Government's reply to that is that nevertheless the cost would increase. They say there would be a rise in the number of entitled applicants. What they are really doing is rather like distributing distasteful sweets, not because they are cheaper, but because fewer people will want them.

Mr. Marten: I think the hon. Member is fair enough to agree that the Government's view is exactly the same as the view his own Government took.

Mr. Morris: The hon. Gentleman has been campaigning for a long time on this question. He and I have had some success in proving our point on cost. I think we have proved it more since this Government came to power than we were able to do previously, for one of the charges against the right hon. Gentleman is that while his predecessor may have


lacked information he is guilty of obscurantism. We have shown that it is possible to provide disabled people with suitable transport. He refuses to do so. That is why he has been condemned on this matter by representative people in the disablement field outside this House. The Disabled Drivers' Association made a statement to me this evening saying it welcomed the provision of cars for haemophiliacs and disabled mothers and the cash alternative in lieu of a vehicle. It went on to say that it regrets the abolition of petrol allowance for tricycle users and that this should not only have been retained but substantially increased.
I was in touch over the weekend with Mr. Peter Large, of the Joint Committee on Mobility for the Disabled. He was hoping that the Secretary of State's statement would offer some major improvement for the disabled passenger. It is a very odd thing that under our present arrangements the more one is disabled the less one receives. The Secretary of State told us this evening that the claims of disabled passengers will be considered in the study about the future of the vehicle service. I would say to him that the matter is an extremely urgent one. He must not mistake the feeling on this side of the House that something must be done in the very near future to help the disabled passenger.
My hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) spoke movingly on behalf of the blind. He spoke as well about the need for more interdepartmental co-ordination. The Secretary of State should not be too touchy or tetchy. I think he was both touchy and tetchy in his replies to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) at the opening of the debate. He is not at his best when he seems restive. We are not attacking the right hon. Gentleman. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh?"] We are attacking the whole Government of which he is a member. Even friendly observers tell us that there has never been a more decidedly one-man Government than we have now. The "one man" is not the right hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Simeons) referred to the serious unemployment problems of severely disabled people. I am sure it will be recognised

by the Secretary of State that the present unemployment figure for employable disabled people is totally unacceptable to this side of the House. There has been a shocking increase in that figure during the last year. In the past five years, there has been an increase of 30,000.
It has been argued recently in a report from the Spastics Society that the present arrangements for the employment of severely disabled people are completely unsatisfactory. No doubt the Secretary of State has seen the report, which says that employers are evading the issue by filling their quota with those who are only "technically disabled", people who have a finger missing, or a slight limp, or who suffer from a high-sounding complaint which involves no disablement. According to the report, one placement officer has said:
It has sometimes taken me as long as three years to find just one opening for a handicapped person. There is no doubt that stricter enforcement of the quota system would create more jobs for the disabled.
If the figure of 3 per cent. is inadequate, let us review the figure. Surely the right hon. Gentleman cannot be satisfied with the present incidence of unemployment among employable disabled people. He argues that it is not his responsibility. That is our argument. There are too many Ministers with responsibilities; there should be more co-ordination of departmental responsibilities.
The hon. Member for Luton in referring to the problems of unemployment, made an impressive case against the complacency of Whitehall. This is not regarded as an unimportant matter by people who speak for disabled people outside the House. May I now refer to one speech that was not made in this debate? My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) has the honour to represent the Post Office Engineering Union. The Welsh members of that union have taken the wholly unprecedented action of contracting with the Post Office to install telephones entirely in their own time and without pay. My hon. Friend has put it to me that, unfortunately, the Department of Health and Social Security is saying that members of the union who do this voluntary work may not be covered for industrial injuries benefit. Since this work can be extremely hazardous, he regards


that as scandalous. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have condemned local authorities for dragging their feet in implementing the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. What my hon. Friend is saying is that the Secretary of State has been dragging his feet on this deeply important matter.
The Post Office Engineering Union has a proud place in the Labour movement. It has given the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act a great filip by its members agreeing to offer their services without pay. The trade union movement is often subjected to considerable criticism by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but we have not heard one word of praise from the other side of the House for this remarkable initiative taken by the Post Office Engineering Union. Will the Secretary of State please look very carefully indeed at this point?
In the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act we were attempting not merely to change social provision for the long-term sick and disabled. We were seeking as well an attitudinal change. We wanted disabled people to be regarded with enhanced dignity and to improve their status in society.
We appreciate what the Secretary of State has done to give effect to Section 17 of the Act, which deals with one of the most sensitive problems in the whole field of social service; namely, the problem of the young chronic sick, many thousands of whom have languished in geriatric wards. The right hon. Gentleman announced the spending of £3 million for building special hospital units for the young chronic sick for the purpose of Section 17. He has now increased the figure to £5 million. I hope he will increase it to any figure that is necessary to make an end of this problem.
We are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his circular about abandoned children in hospital. We are grateful to the authorities of the House for what has been done to improve access to the Palace of Westminster. Far more could be done to improve access to public and social buildings. I hope that Ministers will not be as complacent as some have suggested they have been in giving full effect to our intention that all public and social buildings shall be accessible to the severely disabled.
It has been argued that we are wrongfully attempting to divide the House on this issue. On the contrary, I suggest that we have tabled a blameless Motion, and, if there were no Amendment, there would be no Division. The Amendment is factually inaccurate, which I hope hon. Gentlemen opposite will come to see. Our proposition was drafted with a high degree of moderation and reasonableness.
The Government should not take lightly what has been said on the question of the attendance allowance. My hon. Friends feel that the rules of entitlement are far too restrictive. No doubt some hon. Gentlemen opposite agree with us. I have received details of many hundreds of cases, but I will cite only one at this stage. A correspondent writes:
My dear wife who is now 51 years of age has been completely housebound for 22 years. She suffers from anxiety neurosis and agoraphobia and has also had rheumatic fever three times.
He writes that for 16 years his wife's father had been living with them and that this had enabled him to continue his, the husband's, employment.
For the last 18 months of my father-in-law's life I paid a neighbour to come in and be with them both.
He goes on to say that his wife's health deteriorated and adds:
In March, 1967, my father-in-law died. I have not been outside our front door since then. Nearly two years ago, her condition again worsened and she became confined completely to bed. She has tension in the throat and finds it very difficult to swallow—at one time, she could not even swallow liquid. She was in this state for months and lost a tremendous amount of weight. I am looking after her entire needs both day and night and have done so these past five years.
He was a skilled man, and could not continue with his job because of his wife's illness. He has been refused attendance allowance. There are many such cases where the attendance allowance has been refused on grounds which I find utterly inexplicable.
I referred earlier to aids, and my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles had a good deal to say about Section 22 of the Act. The first annual report under Section 22 is wholly unacceptable. It may be argued that in saying this we are being partisan. Mr. Duncan Guthrie,


Director of the Central Council for the Disabled, describes the report as
…a slim and not very encouraging document".
He goes on:
The nature of Government reports is to be drily factual, but this one shows too many threadbare patches to be welcomed very enthusiastically by the disabled. Virtually no figures are given except for the total expenditure on the research and development of equipment for the disabled by the Department of Health and Social Security (something over £165,750) and by the Scottish Home and Health Department (£24,700).
The current defence White Paper postulates the spending of an additional £66 million on research and development for military purposes in the coming year. With a tithe of that expenditure, the lives of countless disabled people in this country could be transformed. If it is right to spend £66 million in a year on additional research and development under the military account, the right hon. Gentleman ought not to come before us with such pride about his success with the Treasury.
Mr. Guthrie goes on to refer to work which goes on daily in hospitals which he says,
…is aimed at giving relief…to patients with varying degrees of disability. With commendable frankness the report says that 'occasionally hospital authorities may provide limited funds for more formalised programmes of research and development on devices likely to become more widely adopted within the hospital service'. The occasionalness of these limited funds for equipment, restricted apparently to use within the hospital service, is certainly discouraging for the physically handicapped and provides a pointed comment on Lord Rothchild's argument for a customer-contractor relationship in medical research. Of all the sections of medical research, the development of equipment would clearly be the most appropriate for his businesslike proposals. 'The customer says what he wants: the contractor does it (if he can); and the customer pays '. The customer in this case, the Department of Health and Social Security, has made too poor a showing to encourage the transfer of funds from the Medical Research Council's limited allocation to the Department of Health and Social Security, as urged in the Rothschild Report.
Thus we are not by any means exaggerating when we say that the Government's performance in implementing the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act has been totally inadequate.
I could quote from other documents received from organisations representing

the disabled to show that there is considerable disquiet with the first annual report issued under Section 22. I hope that we shall never again have such an unsatisfactory report presented to us under that section.
Sections 9 to 15 of the Act have not been properly implemented so far. These sections concern representation for the disabled on councils and committees advising Ministers and public authorities. I hope that the Under-Secretary will tell us that it is the Government's intention to implement these sections fully at the earliest possible date.
Sections 25 to 27 have not been fully implemented. They concern special educational provision for deaf-blind children, autistic and other children suffering from early forms of childhood psychosis and dyslexic children. Not nearly enough urgency has been shown.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. James Hill) spoke about housing for the disabled. He appeared to agree with us that there has not been sufficient action so far under Section 3. As I understand it, there are only 1,000 purpose-built homes for disabled people. Who on the Government side of the House can say that that is satisfactory after all the pressure that has been exerted from both sides of the House in recent years?
I heard today from Lady Hamilton of the Disabled Living Foundation, who puts it to me that all elderly people's accommodation should be purpose-built to cater for the problems of severely disabled people. There is a great deal of overlapping between the problems of the disabled and the elderly simply because so many elderly people are disabled.
The Secretary of State should be in urgent consultation with organisations representing the disabled on the very important problem of housing provision for the long-term sick and disabled living at home.
We are deeply concerned that Section 1 has not been properly implemented to date. The right hon. Gentleman knows that that Section is about finding out who the disabled are and where they live. The provisions of the Section introduce an entirely new principle into the Welfare State. Instead of resting on the principle of self-application, we placed on


public authority the duty to seek out those who could benefit from this legislation.
We appreciate the difficulties of local authorities because of the Seebohm reorganisation, but some local authorities anticipated the Secretary of State's activation of section 1. Liverpool in a period of only 10 months in 1971 identified 6,300 previously unidentified cases of severe disablement. Manchester is identifying cases at an annual rate of 5,000. We know that the Secretary of State has modified his advice to local authorities. This is a matter of the utmost urgency. There are 4,000 people working voluntarily to identify the missing disabled in the London Borough of Croydon alone. In the London Borough of Ealing 1,100 sixth-formers identified 1,300 previously unidentified disabled people in a week. If individuals can voluntarily give that kind of service, why cannot Ministers do more than they have done so far in emphasising the urgency of these matters?
The local authorities which are not implementing the Act fully and humanely are not saving public money. On the contrary they are wasting it. There are far too many severely disabled people who have to go into hospitals, or are otherwise institutionalised, because of our failure to provide home care facilities for the long-term sick and disabled.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) wrote to the right hon. Gentleman on 4th May and said this:
…your statements to the House on financing the Act seem to me to be misleading. It is, of course, the wish of all of us that this important new Act should wholly succeed in its purpose. But I am sure you will now agree that it does not help for the utterly inaccurate impression to be given that it is an Act which somehow reached the Statute Book without the enabling provisions of a Money Resolution.
Parliament wills the end by unanimously approving the Money Resolution. It is for the Government to will the means.
If the Secretary of State wants to do himself a favour he will increase the resources available to local authorities. An annual increase of 12 per cent. is not enough. It is in the interests of central Government to ensure that more people live in the community and fewer people live in institutions. It is far more costly

to public funds for people to live in institutions than to live in the community. I hope it will be appreciated that the attendance allowance meets only part of the extra costs of some severely disabled people who live at home.
I hope we shall hear something from the Under-Secretary of State about a strategy for a disablement income. I should like to see such an income that would take account of the loss of earning power by the severely disabled. This has proved possible in other countries. Why is it not possible here? I should have thought that hon. Members opposite would have thanked us for emphasising the pressing urgency of problems such as these.
It has been said that the handicapped person should be considered in relation to his family and to society as a whole, but this is not an entirely one-sided relationship. A balance sheet should be drawn up to weigh the strengths of the disabled person against his limitations and to calculate what he can give to the community as well as what he will have to draw from it because of his affliction. Only then can a practical plan of action be framed. We see no evidence of a real strategy to improve the welfare and status of disabled people. We regard the invalidity allowance as ludicrously inadequate.
Our Motion, in our view, is reasonably worded. It should commend itself to hon. Members opposite. I say to them that we are determined to go on pressing the case for improvements for the disabled, and we make no apology whatever for pressing the Motion in the Division Lobby tonight.

9.32 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Alison): This debate has taken place against the background of growing public awareness of the real scale and toll of disablement in our community. The terms of the Motion are critical and controversial and I shall come to its precise charges in due course. At the same time I cannot help reflecting—and here I echo the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) and for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse)—that we make much more progress in these matters in a bipartisan spirit, and


I believe that the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), with his honourable record in these matters, is at his best when he is piloting all-party Bills through the House rather than when he is taking a critical stand on the performance of one side of the House.
The truth is that there is no monopoly for party compassion or party concern in this matter. The point is generally taken that there is a universal concern. It is not by critical Motions on the Order Paper that we shall see major far-reaching changes in the scale of help which is given to the disabled. The reality is—and I share the point of view expressed by the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) when he talked about a major communications problem—that progress is made only when the public are fully apprised of the true condition of those who suffer from disablement. It is this painstaking, often agonising, slow process of public education which alone makes possible even critical Motions by an Opposition, let alone sea-changes in the scale of provision of public resources for the disabled.
Tribute is due primarily not to Oppositions for tabling rather fatuous Motions but to the long and honourable record of hon. Members on both sides who have espoused the cause of the disabled—the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), his hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe, my hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Mr. Astor), for Banbury (Mr. Marten) and for Oxford, the hon. Member for Eccles, my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen); one could go on almost indefinitely. These are the people who really make the changes, and they do it by a process of education, which itself is started and opened up by a great mass of voluntary organisations throughout the country. I should add that Governments themselves—Governments of both parties, I readily concede—make a significant contribution.
We should not overlook the fundamental landmark represented by the report by Amelia Harris, commissioned I think by Mr. Kenneth Robinson in his day and which probably takes its origins from the Bedford College survey on methods of categorising the disabled, the

study of locomotor problems and so on. My right hon. Friend and I in our Department will be seeking to put that report largely into effect.
The sombre truth which one must recognise, and which has come increasingly into the public eye since Amelia Harris's report, is that the greater the degree of handicap the more likely is an individual to be housebound, if not chair-hound or bedfast; and, in consequence, because he is confined to the home, there is a very real chance that he will be out of public sight. I need not complete the sad corollary of the fate of those in our society who have the misfortune to be out of sight.
We have seen the real disadvantage suffered by the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill as a result of their isolation, a disadvantage which, by special measures, the House is now steadily seeking to put right. We are determined that the increasing knowledge which we now have of the real condition of those who are all too often out of sight as a result of physical handicap will give rise to a remedy by the major steps in terms of both finance and manpower which the Government have in view.

Mr. Carter-Jones: The hon. Gentleman is repeating the point which I constantly make. Financial resources are important, but the person of whom he is speaking now has literally, physically, to be found, and this can be done only by means of positive search. This is why I want the hon. Gentleman to deal with the main question of recognition by local authorities.

Mr. Alison: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman makes a bipartisan point. No one wishes to inhibit; everyone wants to encourage local authorities to set about discovery. Indeed I believe that we have here the ingredients of a crusade in the making, with vast numbers of citizens of good will being increasingly mobilised to assist in the highly specialised work of proper assessment of disability and the business of keeping the numbers in view up to date by regular check.
I have a large number of issues to deal with, some of them broad mainstream topics, some of them individual and rather specialised, and I hope that the


House will bear with me if, in doing my best to touch upon them all, I chop about a little from point to point.
First, I take the vexed question of registration. I hope that the House will have noted carefully my right hon. Friend's announcement of the consultations which he is putting in hand to devise a set of statistics which will be the most suitable both for monitoring performance and for maximising the information and intelligence available about those who are registered. But it may be helpful if I explain in a little more detail just how dangerous it is to rely simply on bald figures of the kind with which we are at present concerned.
The Amelia Harris survey published last May showed that over the country as a whole—the information related to the year 1968–69—while about 12 per cent. of handicapped people were registered with local authorities, about 40 per cent., or nearly four times as many, were receiving one or more local authority health or social service. It follows from this that the numbers registered could be very greatly increased without any alteration in the numbers receiving help. What is true over the country as a whole will also be true, subject of course to inevitable local variations, within each local authority, hence the danger of attaching any great significance to figures of the numbers registered.
In general I accept that the increases in numbers registered are likely to reflect increases in the numbers actually receiving services, but comparisons drawn between different local authorities based solely on this yardstick are more harmful than helpful. Financially the real problem at the moment is not only that some expenditure—for example, expenditure by local authority health services—cannot be separated out between recipients who are handicapped and those who are not. So there is inevitably some expenditure of which we cannot take full account.
There is the additional problem that the expenditure on handicapped people as such which could be separated out and itemised—that which arises under Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948—relates almost invariably to the larger block of people who are receiving services and who are not necessarily registered. Therefore, if the numbers regis

tered increase while local authority expenditure remains constant, there will be a diminishing per capita allocation, whereas in fact there has been no change in the total. The situation could even arise where expenditure on the handicapped was increasing but the numbers being registered were increased faster. There would then be the appearance of diminishing expenditure per capita. This would be not only misleading but completely demoralising if the facts were presented in terms of local authorities which were failing in their duties. Many of them are certainly not so failing.

Mr. Ashley: Will the Under-Secretary deal with this vital point? Irrespective of the figures for registration, statistics are now available which prove conclusively that some local authorities are spending as little as one-sixth of what other local authorities are spending on the disabled. Would the Under-Secretary therefore agree that this is a grave dereliction of duty by them? Will he ask his right hon. Friend to intervene and do something about this?

Mr. Alison: The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, for all his marvellous enthusiasm for this cause, must recognise that even on a per thousand basis there are, as the Amelia Harris report makes quite clear, very substantial differences in the incidence of handicap in the different parts of the country. For example it is alleged to be, according to Amelia Harris, 24·7 per 1,000 in the South-East and 40·1 per 1,000 in the South-West. This is why it is difficult to select one particular local authority for comment. I have some fellow feeling for my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch). It is not right for a local authority, active in the South-East, where the incidence is so much lower than in other parts of the country, to be held up as a butt for criticism. The local authorities in Canterbury have done a very great deal. For example, the city council has set up a steering group—to be advised by Professor Warren, Director of Health Services Research at the University of Kent, Canterbury—designed to pave the way for the fullest possible implementation of the provisions of the Act.

Mr. Alfred Morris: In view of the purported confusion about the figures and spending, is it the Minister's view that


there should now be specific late support grants for spending on the chronically sick and disabled?

Mr. Alison: It is hardly in keeping with the whole trend of making local authorities more responsible, with greater statutory and financial responsibilities, a trend in which both parties have a stake, to start substituting specific grants because it is said that we cannot trust them. They are subject to elected representatives, and to the influences of debates in this House. I believe that we can rely on the local authorities and their elected representatives, sensitive to local opinion and readily supported financially by the central Government, to do what the Act expects of them.
I should now like to say something about the attendance allowance. My right hon. Friend and I have noted the rather judicious balance of commendation with lively dissatisfaction, which is perhaps the inevitable result of any new outlay in the interests of the public which Governments make. Parliamentary appetite in this field, as in other fields, rapidly seems to increase with the eating. I share the balanced view of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury that this Government have acted both earlier and more generously than their predecessors envisaged acting. We are only at the beginning. We have made an innovation, a real start in a sense that no other Government have done.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, talked about the loss of supplementary benefit where the invalidity allowance is awarded. He must realise that a complete cut-off of supplementary benefit does not necessarily occur when the invalidity allowance is awarded. It depends, as always in the calculation of supplementary benefit, on the margin between the resources and requirements, which is, in common with the practice for other national insurance benefits, taken into account. It is simply a matter of the extent to which there is a gap between resources and requirements. If such a gap remains, there is no reason why supplementary benefit should be cut off in every case.
The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) rather disappointed us by threatening that he would vote with Labour Members, who are under a three

line Whip, against the Government on the Motion. He asked in particular whether the attendance allowance was being administered in the spirit intended by Parliament. The evidence lies in the 74,000 awards so far made, half as many again as were originally estimated. The awards are being made in accordance with the law as it now is. The Attendance Allowance Board, an independent body of the highest standing, which was set up precisely for this purpose, is constantly alert to the task of trying to ensure unanimity and consistency of standard in the decision process. That is why there is a high rate—now up to over 70 per cent., I believe—of successful applications for review. That is the means of evening out any unevenness in decisions at the initial application stage.
This is an innovation, a positive new net increase in benefits available. We are only at the beginning, the first stage. We expect it to rise to a very much higher and more spectacular orbit, taking its right place in the order of priorities.
A good deal has been said about housing. It has been said at different times that one of the effects of the Act should be to give a new impetus to the provision of specially designed housing for the disabled. Local authorities were making these provisions before the Act came into force, but the number of housing authorities which have submitted proposals to the Department of the Environment since Section 3 of the Act became operative in August, 1970, rose from 27 in February, 1970, to 140, with proposals for 493 dwellings for the disabled, in the period between August, 1970, and December, 1971—an indication that local authorities, as we would expect, take seriously the intention of Parliament in passing the Act.
My Department and the Department of the Environment have been co-operating in a follow-up study of the Amelia Harris study devoted entirely to housing. The objective is to establish the extent to which the housing needs of the disabled can best be met by adapting a disabled person's existing dwelling, or providing him or her with a new house to the Parker Morris standards for local authority housing, or by providing a new dwelling which is specifically purpose-built. This follow-up study is likely to take a little while, and as an interim


measure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has announced his intention within the next two or three months to give advice to local authorities on what they can be doing to assist disabled persons whilst it is in train. When the study is completed, the Government will be taking a fresh look at the whole policy on housing for the disabled in the light of the advice they receive.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) asked about the effect of the Housing Finance Bill upon housing for the disabled. The proposed model scheme for rent allowances in the private sector or rent rebate for council houses provides for £2 of war or industrial injuries payments or their equivalent and £4·80—the full value—of the attendance allowance to be disregarded. The formula for calculating housing subsidies to local authorities under the new scheme would make allowance for the provision of these disregards. This is very much an incentive to local authorities to provide special housing.

Mr. McElhone: rose—

Mr. Alison: I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not give way. I have only seven minutes left in which to cover many points on different issues which have been raised in the debate.

Mr. McElhone: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. [HON. MEMBERS: "Disgraceful!"] This is not disgraceful. You will be aware, Mr. Speaker, that this is the second major debate on disablement within the last few months in which Scotland's situation has been treated in a shabby manner.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's comment appears to go to the content of the Minister's speech and cannot possibly be a matter of order.

Mr. Alison: Not only has Scotland its full share of the application of the Act, with England and Wales, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is and was one of the most active promoters and stimulators of the Act.
I come now to the announcement which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services made about the change in the invalid vehicles service.

The changes have been generally welcomed. I want to touch on one or two points mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, and I do so because the three-wheelers will continue to be on issue and it is extremely important that the thousands of people who will continue to use them should do so with the utmost confidence. My hon. Friend gave some shocking examples of tragic accidents which have occurred to those driving three-wheelers, but examples could also be given of shocking and tragic accidents to those driving four-wheeled vehicles. Both the insurance premiums charged for three-wheelers and the accident results demonstrate that the three-wheelers can be regarded in a thoroughly favourable light from the point of view of safety.
The suggestion that the single wheel might be placed at the rear of the three-wheeler is interesting, but it misses the point that the three-wheeler has a tiller bar or a light steering wheel, which may be fitted according to need, to give lightness of steering, which is an essential ingredient which would be lost if the third wheel were placed at the back. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford suggested that war pensioners always had motor cars, but some have three-wheelers precisely because those are the sort of vehicles that they can drive for themselves.
The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) launched into a fascinating but brief speech on the subject of kidney transplants.

Mrs. Castle: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the subject of vehicles for the disabled, could he tell the House what additional expenditure the Government are proposing on these vehicles?

Mr. Alison: My right hon. Friend has already told the House that there would be no net additional expenditure but a reallocation of expenditure now being made; but he went on to announce a far-reaching long-term review and I cannot anticipate what may be its effect upon expenditure.
My Department has conducted a detailed examination into the subject of increasing the supply of kidneys. My right hon. Friend has concluded that it would be wrong to amend the Human Tissue Act, and unnecessary to do so, in


order to increase the supply of kidneys. The law as it stands contains no impediment to voluntary bequests and already there are 200 transplants each year without apparent legal challenge. We are investigating the possibility of devising an effective and acceptable means of donor recruitment.
The hon. Member for West Lothian repeated this evening a point he made when we discussed the matter privately—the extent to which the limiting factor may be the attitude of the doctors who look after the patients who are the donors, as it were. I promised to write to him about this and I will do so. Our present information remains unqualified—that there are two parties in this equation, not only those interested in getting the organs but those who look after and are responsible for the donors.
My right hon. Friend and I have carefully noted a number of other matters and we shall have to write the Members concerned about them, because time does not permit me to go into detail tonight.

Mrs. Castle: Have another day.

Mr. Alison: The right hon. Lady might care to suggest a nice bipartisan Motion for debate.

The Motion is a self-indicting Motion. The Opposition talk about continuing lack of provision. I am glad that they have had the grace to use the word "continuing", because it is capable of retrospective interpretation. If there be any lack of provision, the roots of that lack go back further than the 20 months during which the present Government have been in power.

Without in any way wanting to denigrate or diminish the value of what the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and his hon. Friends, on both sides of the House, managed to do in the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, I observe that those roots lie way back in many earlier Statutes. The history of Socialism in this respect is a history of 13 wasted Socialist years since the time when the Attlee Government introduced the National Assistance Act, 1948, which contained many ingredients for help for the chronically sick and disabled which the Labour Party never implemented.

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes, 309, Noes 271.

Division No. 61.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Buck, Antony
Dykes, Hugh


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Bullus. Sir Eric
Eden, Sir John


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Burden, F. A.
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)


Astor, John
Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray &amp; Nairn)
Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)


Atkins, Humphrey
Carlisle, Mark
Emery, Peter


Awdry, Daniel
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Farr, John


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Channon, Paul
Fell, Anthony


Balniel, Lord
Chapman, Sydney
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Fidler, Michael


Batsford, Brian
Chichester-Clark, R.
Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Churchill, W. S.
Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)


Bell, Ronald
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Clegg, Walter
Fookes, Miss Janet


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Cockeram, Eric
Fortescue, Tim


Benyon, W.
Cooke, Robert
Foster, Sir John


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Coombs, Derek
Fowler, Norman


Biffen, John
Cooper, A. E.
Fox, Marcus


Biggs-Davison, John
Cordle, John
Fry, Peter


Blaker, Peter
Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick



Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)
Cormack, Patrick
Gardner, Edward


Body, Richard
Costain, A. P.
Gibson-Watt, David


Boscawen, Robert
Critchley, Julian
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)


Bossom, Sir Clive
Crouch, David
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)


Bowden, Andrew
Crowder, F. P.
Glyn, Dr. Alan


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Curran, Charles
Goodhart, Phillip


Braine, Bernard
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)
Goodhew, Victor


Bray, Ronald
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. James
Gorst, John


Brewis, John
Dean, Paul
Gower, Raymond


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Digby, Simon Wingfield
Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Dixon, Piers
Gray, Hamish


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Green, Alan


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Alec
Grieve, Percy


Bryan, Paul
Drayson, G. B.
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)




Grylls, Michael
Maddan, Martin
Rost, Peter


Gummer, Selwyn
Madel, David
Royle, Anthony


Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Maginnis, John E.
Russell, Sir Ronald


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Marten, Neil
Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Mather, Carol
Scott, Nicholas


Hannam, John (Exeter)
Maude, Angus
Scott-Hopkins, James


Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Sharples, Richard


Haselhurst, Alan
Mawby, Ray
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Hastings, Stephen
Maxwell Hyslop, R. J.
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Havers, Michael
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Simeons, Charles


Hawkins, Paul
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Sinclair, Sir George


Hay, John
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Skeet, T. H. H.


Hayhoe, Barney
Miscampbell, Norman
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Heseltine, Michael
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)
Soref, Harold


Hicks, Robert
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Speed, Keith


Higgins, Terence L
Moate, Roger
Spence, John


Hiley, Joseph
Molyneaux, James
Sproat, Iain


Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)
Money, Ernle
Stainton, Keith


Hill, James (Southampton Test)
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Stanbrook, Ivor


Holland, Philip
Monro, Hector
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Holt, Miss Mary
Montgomery, Fergus
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)


Hordern, Peter
More, Jasper
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Hornby, Richard
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Stokes, John


Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)
Morrison, Charles
Sutcliffe, John


Howell, David (Guildford)
Mudd, David
Tapsell, Peter


Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Murton, Oscar
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Hunt, John
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Neave, Airey
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Iremonger, T. L.
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Tebbit, Norman


James, David
Normanton, Tom
Temple, John M.


Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Nott, John
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


Jessel, Toby
Onslow, Cranley
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)


Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Joplinq, Michael
Osborn, John
Tilney, John


Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Trew, Peter


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Tugendhat, Christopher


Kershaw, Anthony
Parkinson, Cecil
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Kilfedder, James
Peel, John
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Kimball, Marcus
Percival, Ian
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Vickers, Dame Joan


King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Waddington, David


Kinsey, J. R.
Pink, R. Bonner
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Kirk, Peter
Pounder, Ration
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Kitson, Timothy
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Knight, Mrs. Jill
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Wall, Patrick


Knox, David
Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.
Walters, Dennis


Lambton, Lord
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Ward, Dame Irene


Lane, David
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Warren, Kenneth


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Raison, Timothy
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Le Marchant, Spencer
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Redmond, Robert
Wiggin, Jerry


Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut' nC' dfield)

Wilkinson, John


Longden, Gilbert
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)
Winterton, Nicholas


Loveridge, John
Rees, Peter (Dover)
Wolrige Gordon, Patrick


Luce, R. N.
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Wood. Rt. Hn. Richard


McAdden. Sir Stephen
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


MacArthur, Ian
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Woodnutt, Mark


McCrindle, R. A.
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Worsley, Marcus


McLaren, Martin
Ridsdale, Julian
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Younger, Hn. George


McMaster, Stanley
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Mr. Reginald Eyre and


McNair-Wilson, Michael
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Mr. Bernard Weatherill.


McNair-Wilson. Patrick (NewForest)
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)





NOES


Abse, Leo
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)


Albu, Austen
Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)
Bradley, Tom


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Baxter, William
Broughton, Sir Alfred


Allen, Scholefield
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Bennett, James (Glasgow Bridgeton)
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)


Armstrong, Ernest
Bishop, E. S.
Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)


Ashley, Jack
Blenkinsop, Arthur
Buchan, Norman


Ashton, Joe
Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)


Atkinson, Norman
Booth, Albert
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James




Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Huckfield, Leslie
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles


Cant, R. B.
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Pardoe, John


Carmichael, Neil
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Parry, Robert(Liverpool, Exchange)


Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)
Hunter, Adam
Pavitt, Laurie


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Janner, Greville
Pendry, Tom


Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Pentland, Norman


Cohen, Stanley
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Perry, Ernest G.


Coleman, Donald
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.


Concannon, J. D.
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Prescott, John


Conlan, Bernard
John, Brynmor
Price, William (Rugby)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Probert, Arthur


Cox, Thomas(Wandsworth, C.)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Rankin, John


Crawshaw, Richard
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Reed, D.(Sedgefield)


Cronin, John
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Cunningham, G.(Islington, S.W.)
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Richard, Ivor


Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Dalyell, Tam
Judd, Frank
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Kaufman, Gerald
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Davidson, Arthur
Kelley, Richard
Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Br'c'n &amp; R'dnor)


Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)
Kerr, Russell
Rodgers, William(Stockton-on-Tees)


Davies, Ifor(Gower)
Kinnock, Neil
Roper, John


Davies, S. O.(Merthyr Tydvil)
Lambie, David
Rose, Paul B.


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Lamond, James
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Lawson, George
Sandelson, Neville


Deakins, Eric
Leadbitter, Ted
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Delargy, H. J.
Leonard, Dick
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Lestor, Miss Joan
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)


Dempsey, James
Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Doig, Peter
Lewis, Ron(Carlisle)
Silkin, Hn. S. C.(Dulwich)


Dormand, J.D.
Lipton, Marcus
Sillars, James


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Lomas, Kenneth
Silverman, Julius


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Loughlin, Charles
Skinner, Dennis


Driberg, Tom
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Small, William


Duffy, A. E.P.
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Eadie, Alex
McBride, Neil
Spearing, Nigel


Edelman, Maurice
McCann, John
Spriggs, Leslie


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
McCartney, Hugh
Stallard, A. W.


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
McElhone, Frank
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)


Ellis, Tom
McGuire, Michael
Stoddart, David(Swindon)


English, Michael
Mackenzie, Gregor
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Evans, Fred
Mackie, John
Strang, Gavin


Ewing, Henry
Mackintosh, John P.
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Faulds, Andrew
Maclennan, Robert
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Swain, Thomas


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
McNamara, J. Kevin
Taverne, Dick


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Foley, Maurice
Marks, Kenneth
Thomson, Rt. Hn. G.(Dundee, E.)


Foot, Michael
Marquand, David
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Ford, Ben
Marsden, F.
Tinn, James


Forrester, John
Marshall, Dr. Edmund
Tomney, Frank


Fraser, John (Norwood)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Torney, Tom


Freeson, Reginald
Mayhew, Christopher
Tuck, Raphael


Galpern, Sir Myer
Meacher, Michael
Urwin, T. W.


Garrett, W. E.
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Varley, Eric G.


Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)
Mendelson, John
Wainwright, Edwin


Golding, John
Mikardo, Ian
Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.
Millan, Bruce
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Gourlay, Harry
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Wallace, George


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Milne, Edward
Watkins, David


Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)
Mitchell, R. C.(S'hampton, Itchen)
Weitzman, David


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Molloy, William
Wellbeloved, James


Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Whitehead, Phillip


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Whitlock, William


Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Hamling, William
Moyle, Roland
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


Hardy, Peter
Murray, Ronald King
Williams, W. T.(Warrington)


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Ogden, Eric
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
O'Halloran, Michael
Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


Hattersley, Roy
Oram, Bert
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Healey, Rt. Hn. Edward
Orbach, Maurice
Woof, Robert


Heffer, Eric S.
Orme, Stanley
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hooson, Emlyn
Oswald, Thomas
Mr. James A. Dunn and


Horam, John
Owen, Dr. David(Plymouth, Sutton)
Mr. Joseph Harper.


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Paget, R. T.



Howell, Denis(Small Heath)
Palmer, Arthur

Question accordingly agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House welcomes the present Government's introduction of the Attendance

Allowance for the very severely disabled, the invalidity benefits for the chornic sick an their families and the rising provision for buildings and for the facilities and aids for the disabled; and commends the Government's realism in encouraging local authorities to implement the provisions of the Chornically Sick and Disabled Persons Act as fast as increasing staff and increasing resources allow.

Orders of the Day — SCOTLAND (RATE SUPPORT GRANTS)

10.14 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office (Mr. George Younger): I beg to move,
That the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) Order 1972, dated 7th February 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 14th February, be approved.
[Interruption].

Mr. Speaker: Will hon. and right hon. Members withdraw quietly from the Chamber, please?

Mr. Younger: I would suggest that with this order we take my next Motion,
That the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) (No. 2) Order 1972, dated 7th February 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 14th February, be approved.
House of Commons Paper No. 76 explains the considerations leading—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would ask hon. Members to withdraw as quickly and quietly as possible. Meanwhile, if it is for the convenience of the House the two orders can be taken together. Is that agreed?

Hon. Members: Yes.

Mr. Younger: House of Commons Paper No. 76 explains the considerations leading to the provisions of the order—

Mr. Frank McElhone: Could I prevail upon you, Mr. Speaker, to ask the Minister to withhold his statement till we have quiet in the House?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are facing a problem from the habit of hon. Members to talk, but it is gradually subsiding. Mr. Younger—try again.

Mr. Younger: No one can accuse me of not trying.
House of Commons Paper No. 76 explains the considerations leading to the provisions of this order. I also draw the attention of the House to the No. 2 order laid before the House on the same day as the first and the provisions of which are explained in House of Commons Paper No. 77. They both serve similar purposes, and I am sure that they

will be acceptable to both sides of the House in so far as each order is intended to prevent the value of rate support grant from being eroded by subsequent unforeseen rises in the level of prices and wages.
Each order increases the rate support grant paid by the Scottish Office in aid of local authority reckonable expenditure which would otherwise fall to be met out of rates. Reckonable expenditure includes the cost of providing all local authorities services other than trading services and expenditure carried on housing revenue account, and this is about 80 per cent. of the present expenditure of local authorities on revenue account.
Hon. Members may recall that about a year ago, on 15th March, my right hon. Friend introduced two rate support grant orders. One was to increase the amount of grant for the second rate support grant period 1969–70 and 1970–71, and the other was to provide grant for the third grant period; that is, 1971–72 and 1972–73. These two orders provide grant on estimates of the expenditure of the authorities which were agreed with the local authority associations towards the end of 1971 on the basis of prices ruling in November of that year. Since that date there have inevitably been wage and salary awards and price changes affecting local authority expenditure, and they call for an adjustment of the estimates.
The powers under which the Secretary of State pays the rate support grant to local authorities come from the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1966. Under Section 4 the Secretary of State may redetermine the rate of support grant when he is satisfied that since the grant was last determined for any particular year there has been an increase in the level of costs, prices or remuneration and that the effect of the increase on the reckonable expenditure of the local authorities is substantial.
Under the general powers in Section 4, the Secretary of State can vary the grant settlement only to take account of the effects of cost increases. He cannot vary the main settlement to take account of changes in expenditure which are the result of policy decisions, whether by central government or by local government. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that there have been cost increases, and


that the effects are substantial, and he has therefore decided that there should be increases to the grants payable for 1970–71, 1971–72 and 1972–73.
Perhaps I should say a word about the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) (Increase) Order, 1972. This increases the grant for 1970–71, the second year of the last grant period. This was originally fixed at November, 1968, prices by an order made at the beginning of 1969 and adjusted by the 1970 increase order to the price level of November, 1969, and then by last year's increase order to that of November, 1970. These orders have brought up the amount of grant provided for 1970–71 from its original figure, which was £214 million, to £227 million, and then to £251 million, and the present order makes the third and final increase to £255 million. All these successive sums represent 65½ per cent. of the reckonable expenditure of local authorities for that year as originally estimated but with adjustments to the eventual out-turn price.
As hon. Members will have observed from Appendix I to the report, the largest item is the cost of increased police pay and allowances, including a general pay award which took effect from September, 1970, and the additional costs arising from implementation of a reduced working week from April, 1970. There were also, as hon. Members will know, awards to chief constables and assistant chief constables, and other pay awards, including just under £1 million for teachers, part of a general award from 1st April, 1971, of which the main effect fell into subsequent financial years.
The cost of loan charges, after rising fast for some years, began in 1970–71 to level out, but there was nevertheless an estimated increase of £½ million in the cost of local authority borrowing. A number of other minor cost and price changes were estimated to add some £2 million to the total of the reckonable expenditure of authorities, and, after taking account of offsetting increases in income which tend to follow expenditure, the estimated increase is £6·07 million.
In accordance with the original grant settlement, this attracts Exchequer grant at the rate of 65·5 per cent., making a grant increase of £4 million. Of this increase, £1·4 million is absorbed by specific grants, mainly the police grant, and £2·6 million is accordingly payable

as rate support grant. Three-quarters of the additional rate support grant will be distributed as needs element and the remainder as resources element.
I come to the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) (No. 2) Order, 1972. This increases the grant provided for both years of the present grant period by the order which the House approved in March last year. The total increase of grant over the two years 1971–73 is approximately £40 million. My right hon. Friend has also taken the opportunity to include in this increase order some changes in the distribution formula for the needs element of the grant which have been agreed with the local authority associations after a joint review of the working of the present formula. The last time the formula was changed was in 1970.
I wish particularly to acknowledge and bring to the attention of the House the valuable help we get from the local authority side, both from those devoted few who take part in the committee work and from the many who supply the complicated statistical returns without which the annual pricing of this large block of expenditure would be a rather hit or miss affair.
The additional grant is at the prescribed percentage rates, 66 per cent. for 1971–72 and 66½ per cent. for 1972–73, of the estimated increase of expenditure. The estimate of cost increases is the product of detailed joint examination and analysis of local authority expenditure and of the effects of different pay awards and price changes after study by officials of the Scottish Departments concerned and representatives of the local authority associations.
Hon. Members will also have noticed in Appendix I of the report on this order the broad composition of the price increases, about which it might be helpful if I were to comment. This is a pattern which has appeared before in this type of order. Staff costs amount to more than half of the total. There was a major award of nearly 9 per cent. for school teachers, and the full effect of this, with the award to further education teachers, has an effect of just over £9 million. The police award, to which I have referred, increased costs by about £3½ million, and there was a general award to professional, administrative,


technical and clerical staffs which was calculated to have a full effect of 9.1 per cent. from the beginning of July, 1971, and adds over £2 million to the estimate of reckonable expenditure.
Including other lesser awards, the total cost is put at over £18 million in each of the two years, and there are consequential increases in view of the higher wages and salaries which are reflected in higher employers' contributions in respect of graduated pensions and superannuation.
Hon. Members may also recall the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1971, which provided for the pensions of retired public servants to be adjusted in relation to past price changes, a Measure which I think I am right in saying was generally welcomed as being fair and necessary. However, it adds £¾ million annually to the estimates of reckonable expenditure. Increases in cost of other than wages and salaries are estimated to add £14½ million in 1971–72 and £15½ million in 1972–73, and these amounts cover many different changes.
It might be helpful if I were to give a few examples. For 1972–73 the cost of textbooks and library books is estimated to increase by £350,000; clothing and uniform costs by £80,000; road maintenance materials by £400,000; while the cost of heating, lighting and cleaning properties used for the different services is estimated to increase by over £2 million.
Against the gross increase of £35 million and £38 million for the two years may be offset some increases of income arising mainly where some of the increased costs fall on recoverable expenditure. Hon. Members will find the amounts offset against the increases for each year at the bottom of Appendix I of the report on the order and detailed against individual services in Appendix II.

Mr. John Brewis: There is a reduction for efficiency and economy one year of £1 million and of £2·5 million for the next year. Are these purely arbitrary figures like the price review?

Mr. Younger: They are agreed figures. They have been agreed in consultation with the local authority associations and are made up of a number of complex calculations.
Hon. Members may remember that these amounts include substantial savings in estimated loan charges as a result of the fall of nearly 2 per cent. in interest rate on new borrowing between 1st December, 1970, and 1st December, 1971, a welcome change after trends in recent years.
Lastly, they include the savings arising as a result of the Education (Milk) Act, 1971, that Act having specifically provided for the resulting savings to be allowed for in any re-determination of grant for the current grant period. In estimating the savings of £2¼ million for the two years of the grant period we have, in agreement with the local authority associations, made generous assumptions about the possible number of primary schoolchildren over 7 who will get free milk on medical grounds. The resulting net cost increases are £29 million and £30 million for 1971–72 and 1972–73 respectively. These, in turn, add £19 million and £20 million to the aggregate Exchequer grant, of which £16 million and £17 million goes into the rate support grant.
Approximately three-quarters of the additional grant is to be distributed as needs element, approximately one-quarter as resources element, but we have at the same time taken the opportunity to make small increases in the domestic element of grant. These derive not from cost changes but from up-dating our estimates of total domestic rateable values and, therefore, of the amounts of grant necessary to give households the prescribed reductions of the rate poundage—that is, of II p in the pound for 1971–72 and 12p in the pound for 1972–73.
I propose to refer briefly to the changes in the formulae which govern the primary distribution of the general needs element distribution to county and city authorities, which I mentioned earlier. This is the largest of the grant elements. It takes approximately three-quarters of the total rate support grant, and, because its distribution can have a very significant effect on local rate poundages, the working of the distribution formulae is kept under review by my right hon. Friend's departments and the local authority associations in consultation with each other.
The grant is distributed, as hon. Members will know, according to population


as increased by weightings representative of the various objective factors which affect the costs of providing local services. In other words, the factors are geography and population, which are out-with the direct control of the authorities themselves. The weightings are spelt out in detail in the schedule to the order, but when I say that the total weighted population is some three times the actual population hon. Members will recognise that the weightings are the predominant influence in grant distribution.
For 1972–73 the changes in weightings are, first, the dropping of the weightings for part-time evening and further education; second, some increase in the weighting for variation of the population; and, third, some reductions of the weightings which reflect the distribution of county populations as between landward and burgh areas. Briefly, the further education weighting included in the calculation of education units is dropped because it did not reflect the incidence of expenditure on this service. The weighting for population changes is stepped up because of evidence that the associated additional burdens on rate fund expenditure were not adequately compensated by the scope of weighting formula prescribed. The weighting for the ratio of landward to total population is scaled down, because that seemed to introduce an element of over-compensation to some authorities.
The distribution changes have the unanimous support of the local authority associations. Their effects on the whole will be marginal, but the City of Glasgow, because of its large size and rapidly falling population, will gain considerably from the increase in the variation weightings, and the justice of this has been generally recognised by other authorities in the consultations that we have had.
In presenting the orders to the House I have laid some stress on the fact that the problems of cost increases and of improving grant distribution have been tackled in association with the local authorities. It is absolutely essential that there should be this co-operation. I think it gratifying also that over six years of work together under two different Administrations on the problems of reckonable expenditure and the rate support grant the machinery has been considerably strengthened. As was said

in the Green Paper on local government finance, it is the Government's intention to find means to make possible the same kind of joint approach to influence decisions in the whole field of local government expenditure.
I have tried to give as much information as I can in introducing the orders, and I hope that the House will approve them.

10.35 p.m.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: I compliment the Under-Secretary of State on an excellent reading of his brief. I say that with complete impartiality because I was in trouble with his predecessor when I paid him the same compliment. It is evidence, I think, that many of us find this a difficult subject to understand, especially if, as I do, we are inclined to leave a study of it till the last minute. It is undeniably a complicated matter.
I shall not use the word "generosity" tonight, though I have no doubt we shall be hearing it in the morning, but I suppose that if any Minister says that Glasgow will benefit from something there must be some value in it, and as he said that it has had the unanimous agreement, if not approval, of other local authorities I presume that there is some justice in the recognition of the extra burdens which are being added in Glasgow as a result of declining population. I think that that is the substance of it. Obviously, everyone will welcome—however regrettable the need may be—the pay increases and the increases in the police and public service pensions.
I hope that I shall be in order now in taking up one other matter. In fact, this is so complicated a business generally that I am hoping that it will be difficult to detect when I am out of order. The Minister seems to emphasise an inability to use the Act and the machinery under it to make provision for the additional burdens thrown on many authorities by the advancing of public works programmes with a view to making some impact on the level of unemployment.
Is it not possible to use this machinery to make adjustments on the basis of the needs element? If it is possible to take account of other changes, why not this also? Or do we need amending legislation to enable the Government to do what should be done in common justice?


It is unreasonable to expect local authorities and their ratepayers to take on additional burdens in this way without some provision being made. The Minister will be aware of the detailed representations which have been made by many local authorities on this score. Has consideration been given to them in the context of these orders, or can steps be taken to do justice to the valid points which the local authorities have made?

10.38 p.m.

Mr. Norman Buchan: In the Secretary of State's Report on the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (No. 2) Order, we are told that the savings under the Education (Milk) Act, 1971, are £1,020,000 in 1971–72 and £1,230,000 in the following year. I find this curious. I cannot see how the Government can make any sensible estimate whatever of the operation of that Act. As a result of its imposition on the local authorities—I say "imposition" because it was imposed against the will and desire of every local authority in Scotland—some very curious results are emerging.
For instance, under the provision for exemption on medical grounds we are finding a fluctuation, with some counties giving no free milk on medical grounds while others are giving as much as 40 per cent. But, of course, the examination is still continuing. The Government must recognise clearly, as must every medical officer of health in Scotland, that this is a ludicrous position. It is just not medically conceivable that in one county not a single child should require milk and in another county 40 per cent. of children should require milk.
We cannot say that the health differentiation between, say, Sutherland and Lanarkshire is different by a factor of 40. Indeed, since it is actually zero in some counties, the health factor in Scottish children has to be assumed to be varying by a factor of infinity. As soon as other medical officers recognise this the whole situation will change. There is no known reason why the 40 per cent. of children should have the milk, and medical officers are going to start applying the extension which is applied to the 40 per cent. The only thing that is preventing every child in Scotland from getting free school milk as of right on medical grounds is that the medical

officers of health cannot yet quite believe that this Government are as stupid as they are. Medical officers of health are saying, for example, "Yes, we quite see that every child should and could get milk under this if they require it, as they do require it. But, clearly, the Government could not mean this." Some of the medical officers of health are trying to interpret the situation for the Government, and they have not yet seen that they can all give every child free milk.
So in a curious way, in trying to behave in a responsible way, unlike the Government, the medical officers of health are now themselves preventing the mass issuing of free milk in Scotland. Since they are very reasonable and tolerant people, when they realise that in some counties no children are receiving milk and in other counties the figure is 40 per cent. and perhaps more, they will ask why they should deprive the schoolchildren in their county of free milk and will begin, as I hope and as they should, to give it to every child.
I can see that the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) is aching to intervene and defend his Government's reactionary policy, but it is to the Minister that I am addressing my remarks.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: I am very interested in the argument which the hon. Member is advancing, and I appreciate the difficulties that he describes. They are, of course, entirely new because when the Labour Government abolished free milk in secondary school there was no exemption of any kind on medical grounds, and it would be well for the hon. Member and his hon. Friends to remember that.

Mr. Buchan: In the first place there was a very obvious difference in the medical advice that was given; for example by Dr. Yudkin a nutritional expert. The hon. Member should look up the medical evidence before he interrupts. Secondly, I hope he has read some of the information given by the director of education in Perthshire who, because of the decisions taken by the Government, was concerned that rural schools would not get supplies of milk because of the problems of supplying a small amount of milk to them.

Mr. MacArthur: Will the hon. Member give way? He is referring to my constituents.

Mr. Buchan: Another omission—

Mr. MacArthur: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Buchan: No. The last time I spoke from the Front Bench the hon. Gentleman interrupted me 11 times in 10 minutes.

Mr. MacArthur: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not a convention of the House that when an hon. Member refers to another hon. Member's constituency, particularly in the terms we have just heard, it is usual for the Member representing that constituency to be able to intervene to make some comment?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): It may be a convention of the House, but that is not a point of of order. There is nothing I can do about it.

Mr. Buchan: As always, I concur with your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. MacArthur: Give way.

Mr. Buchan: No. I was dealing not with the hon. Gentleman's constituency but with the entire County of Perth, using it to exemplify a general problem.
The other curious omission—

Mr. MacArthur: Get up to date.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) must keep within the rules of order.

Mr. Buchan: It is a good job the Liberal Members are not here, or the hon. Gentleman might be attacking them.
The other great omission is that, while the Minister referred to the saving made by the monstrous proposal to take free milk away from children, he has not referred to the income that will accrue to local education authorities in Scotland as a result of that great gesture towards education policies, the Education (Scotland) Act on fee-paying that the Government passed last year. Why are they not expecting any authority to apply it?

They laboured it through Committee sitting after Committee sitting for five months, holding our noses grimly to the grindstone, while another industrial crisis was developing. We heard no mention tonight of the money that will come to the local authorities as a result of the Act. Is it because no local authorities wish to apply it? I understand that there are now three schools in Edinburgh that might apply it if the Secretary of State for Scotland were so misguided as to give one judgment against the wishes of the Glasgow Corporation and one judgment for the tiny majority in the Edinburgh Corporation. I cannot believe that he would be so foolish as to do that. It is curious that the Government have recognised that that Act was a sterile exercise and that no real revenue will come into the local authorities as a result.
My third point is that raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) on the public works programmes. If the Government had been seized of the seriousness of the industrial and economic position they have placed us in, they would have tried to ram through the right kind of public works. In some desperation, they have now tried to distribute money as fast as they can, turning their policies on Government expenditure upside down. That is one way of trying to reduce unemployment. It could have been done by extending the amount of grant given to local authorities, putting it on a 100 per cent. grant basis. I thought we might have seen special provision here to deal with the situation in which the Government have placed Scotland. I thought we might have seen special aid in the rate support grant to bring forward the right kind of public expenditure programmes to deal with the mess they have led us into.
With those few uncontroversial remarks, I conclude.

10.48 p.m.

Mr. Frank McElhone: I apologise to the Minister for having been absent for part of his speech. But I heard him say that the order makes no allowance for central or local government policy changes. I hope I quote him correctly.
Having regard to that, I begin with one or two comments on the social work allocation. I was rather aggrieved that


in our previous debate, on provision for the chronically sick and disabled, questions relating to Scotland were not answered.
In our last rate support grant debate I raised the question of home help provision under the Social Work Act (Scotland), and was told that there was a 25 per cent. increase in rate support grant for social work, which would enable many local authorities to increase their number of home helps. But it was only by checking that figure that I discovered that an increase of 25 per cent. over two or three years amounted to £5 million, and since there are 55 social work authorities in Scotland not much benefit results. Costs have escalated to such a degree that I think, without the benefit of a cost analysis from the local authorities, that these increases are too small. The Department has not paid due regard to severe increases particularly in the administration of social work departments.
Not one social work department in Scotland is fully staffed. If we are to carry out the social work policy as laid down by my party and the present Government, the first priority is to have regard to the severe shortage of trained social workers. I have been making representations not only to Glasgow but to the training college in Edinburgh, which I hope to visit next week, about the position. I hope that the Under-Secretary will give us an assurance that efforts will be made to recruit more staff, particularly social workers. The fact that this is urgent can best be exemplified by reference to the recent crisis in my constituency when 770 disabled people were in severe difficulties because of the fuel crisis and because the social work department in Glasgow was inadequately staffed to deal with it. It was only the voluntary social workers plus some clergymen in my area who saved the situation.
The allowance for libraries is totally insufficient. There is a need to make libraries accessible to disabled people, which is a costly operation for many libraries. Many periphery housing estates are devoid of proper library facilities. In one large housing estate in Glasgow there is always a queue of young people who wish to use the library and because it is far too small they cannot make proper use of it. We should try to expand the

library facilities, particularly for young people and people who have retired early through redundancy and voluntary retirement. I hope that the Under-Secretary will pay regard to this point.
I wish to deal with the projected assessments for town and country planning in Appendix II of the No. 2 Order. The projected increase for 1971–72 is from £8·42 million to £8·49 million. The figure given for 1972–73 is £9·35 million. The end column in the table refers to a forecast "as further increased" to £9·34 million. I am not clear about that.
The Minister has been having discussions with the Glasgow local authority about a change in its attitude towards planning matters. The authority proposed 29 very costly developments projects and it has dealt with only eight. Therefore, 21 compulsory development area schemes vital to Glasgow's planning needs in clearing slums are left in abeyance. The local authority entered into negotiation, through the district valuer, with many organisations, firms and individuals to purchase ground, perhaps a few years in advance of its needs. But the good reason for that was that the cost of ground was escalating.
The memorandum which the Minister submitted to the Glasgow local authority was excellent in what it said about the environment and the planning of a city for the twenty-first century. I said elsewhere that I fully supported that part of the memorandum. However, we must consider the costs involved in any plan to change the whole structure of an area like Glasgow, and the figures mentioned are totally inadequate for Glasgow's needs. We have the privilege in Glasgow of seeing the rebuilding of a great city within our lifetime; whether we should also have the privilege of paying for it is another matter.
I am sure that I carry all other Glasgow Members with me when I say that Glasgow already has a tremendous rate burden in the cost of other services, and that must be borne in mind when the Minister's memo is considered and when all the good things in it are implemented, and the resources allocated to planning will have to be reconsidered. Planning is vital if we are to attract new industry to Glasgow and central Scotland, and Glasgow's structural image will have to


be changed if we are to attract middle management and executive levels to Glasgow.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. The hon. Member is going a little wide of the order.

Mr. McElhone: I was drifting a little.
Those are my sincere comments on issues which are worrying Glasgow Corporation, which probably has more problems than any other local authority in Great Britain, and I hope that they will be considered in the discussions with local authorities about rates.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: We are dealing with considerable sums of money. An indication of the frailty of our ability to make exact forecasts of the support needed by local authorities is to be found in paragraph 2 of the order:
For the amount prescribed by the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1969, as amended by the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) Order 1970 and the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) Order 1971 for the purposes of rate support grant for the year 1970–71 …
Here we are having our third go at it.
That shows how frail are our efforts to estimate accurately and how important it is to get things right at the start. Once we fix reckonable expenditure and the rate support grant, the increases which we may make are limited by the 1966 legislation to meeting unforeseeable increases in costs of materials, wages and so on and we may not take account of increases or developments of services or new services.
To some extent, therefore, we do not get a true picture of local authority expenditure. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) should ask the Vote Office for two House of Commons papers, for 1964 and 1965, and in the Appropriation Accounts for 1970 and 1971, now available, he will see exactly what local authorities spent and the extent to which calculations were wrong in the original order and the increase order for 1970 and 1971. He will find that what was actually spent was 3·3 per cent., above the last increase order.
The Government suggested in the main order, in February of last year, that there

was an inbuilt growth of about 5 per cent. If a local authority exceeds that it comes from the ratepayers. There may be justifiable reasons why the amount should exceed that, but there will be no support from the Government.
If we examine carefully the position in 1970–71 we get the true picture of what happened when the Government began to save money. It will come as a surprise to many hon. Members to be told that in that year the Government handed back to the Treasury over £3 million in money allocated for roads but not spent. I have all the figures here. The Scottish Office managed to hand back £5,078. The Scottish Development Department handed back £3·664 million. The figure for housing was £1·9 million. £129,000 was surrendered in terms of rate support grants to local revenues. The sum from the health services of Scotland was £1·18 million. In that year—believe it or believe it not—on social work in Scotland there was an under-spending of nearly £81,000.
Over £10 million was handed back. Fancy the Scottish Office handing back to the Treasury money that it had available! No wonder the Secretary of State is busy trying to fill up the holes he created by encouraging local authorities to spend more money. The Secretary of State will appreciate that he can get them to spend more money, but it will not be covered by these grants. It cannot be covered by these grants. We shall have to wait until we have another main rate support order before this can be covered. In the meantime local authorities are borrowing money and trying to meet their commitments and the expenses that he wants them to incur because he is not giving them 100 per cent. grants.
The problem arises only because of the Government's failure to give local authorities 100 per cent. grants, and the local authorities will have to pay for it. Eventually they might get it back, but all that will come in the next tangle about reckon-able expenditure. I was delighted to hear about the agreement with local authorities. I loved the answer that the Minister gave his hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) when he said that the local authorities agreed. The local authorities did nothing of the kind. The Government told them to strike


reckonable expenditure, and after the reckonable expenditure and the rate support grant were calculated the Government decided to reduce it by £1 million for 1971–72 and by £2½ million for 1972–73. They told the local authorities they were sure they could save £3½ million out of about £760 million reckonable expenditure.
In 1970–71 there were retrospective wage and salary increases, with which I do not quarrel but let us look at 1971–72. There will be another order next year. We have increased costs, salaries and so on from £852·03 million to £911·57 million. The cost to local authorities of these services has risen by about £72·91 million—an increase of about 8 per cent. This is cutting prices at a stroke!
We are not finished yet because there is the cost of heating and lighting and it will be interesting to see how the Government finance the recent settlement. There has been bungling there and no doubt the Government's ideas will not be shared by one hon. Member opposite and there will be another resignation from the Scottish Office—this time the "Parliamentary Private ill-mannered Secretary". [Interruption.] We want no hooliganism from the Tory benches tonight.
Local authorities have to meet about £62 million extra expenditure and of that the Government will help with £33·26 million leaving a considerable amount to be met from the rates. This brings us back to the decision in the main order last year to reduce the amount of central Government help from 1 per cent. to ½ per cent. This has had its effect on the rate burden on industry and particularly domestic ratepayers to whom the 1 per cent. went in the past.
Will the Under-Secretary tell us how the hopes of the Secretary of State were realised? Last year in dealing with the main order he was issuing suggestions to local authorities to take the opportunity to develop services beyond what could be afforded by rate and taxpayers. Then he said it was too early to make estimates. Surely it is not too early now to tell us what local authorities are raising this year in rates as compared with last year? Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied on that matter?
My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) raised a valid

point about school milk. In the two years, over £2 million is being saved on this as a result of direct Government action. But no figure is given for the saving which the Government are making on school meals, although the heading for the education item states that it includes milk and meals. We would like that figure tonight. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will break it up to show the saving on school meals in the current year and what the saving is estimated to be next year, bearing in mind that the cost of school meals is to go up next September.
These are not complicated matters. Accepting, as we do, that reckonable expenditure is being sought and that the Government have tied up the formula in respect of the increases they can meet, the rest follows. But there is one complex formula which almost defies the brain to understand at this time of night, and that is the distribution formula. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman is taking credit for this. He did not tell us that Glasgow was benefiting from the distribution formula. Perhaps he will quantify it for this year and next year. In March last year, we pointed out that by using the power under the 1966 Act we were able to provide Glasgow with additional money, so that Glasgow must have received over £1,500,000. The Secretary of State said then that this was not the way to deal with Glasgow's finances, but it is a good way to do justice to a city carrying very heavy burdens, particularly at a time when its population is falling.
I gather that this fact was in the Government's mind when they changed the distribution formula to take account of the continuing burdens of local authorities, mainly in urban areas, where there was falling population and where hitherto advantage had been given by a weighting for population as compared with more sparsely populated areas. If any of my hon. Friends want to study the Government's formula for weighted population and so on between now and next year, they might be able to understand it by then—but no doubt the Government will have changed it again by then. It is certainly a complicated formula. I always thought that the Government came to a conclusion about the figures they wanted and worked back from there to the formula


to get their desired answer. I have never been persuaded otherwise.
Quite a lot arises out of these calculations. Appendix 3 deals with the effect of specific grants to local authorities and these enter into the calculations because they are deducted from the calculated rate support grant. Whereas there is an increase in the specific grant for the police, for example, of £2·31 million in the current year and £2·40 million next year, when we come to rate rebates we find there is an increase of £300,000 this year and £500,000 next.
Why is the expenditure on rate rebates going up? Are more people claiming rate rebates because they are poor under this Government, or are rates going up? The whole purpose of the order last year was to stabilise rates. I do not think the increase will be sufficient; next year we shall have another increase order.
Then there is the item "Other". Those grants rise by £310,000 this year and £370,000 next year. Under that heading are included civil defence, about £200,000, urban re-development and housing improvement. With all the pressures the Government are putting on local authorities one would have expected far greater expenditure here. Was an expenditure limit laid down by the Secretary of State, in spite of all the pressures put on local authorities? There is something wrong somewhere if all we get in 1972–73 is the carry forward of £0·31 to £0·37. I presume only a £60,000 increase in costs is expected next year. That does not match either the need in Scotland or the claim of the Government. That increase also covers clean air, youth employment, sheltered workshops, Sheriff courthouses and other matters. This suggests a holding back at a time when the Secretary of State wants local authorities to go ahead.
When does the Secretary of State expect the next increase order, and will it cover another 8 or 9 per cent. increase in costs, bearing in mind the teachers? I am sure that Parliamentary Private Secretary will be shouting his head off demanding that the teachers be treated as a special case, especially those in his constituency and those who are not well-qualified. This will affect the Government's credibility.
In last year's report there were a number of errors, but this year there is only one mistake. It is said that last year we discussed this matter on 16th March, whereas we did so on 15th March. Admittedly it was after midnight, but the parliamentary date is still 15th March. I expect accuracy from the Scottish Office, but there have been changes since certain hon. Members left it. In fact, we had a page of corrections last year. I am happy to see an improvement this year.
From the point of view of estimating and the outlook for local authorities and ratepayers, we do not have much confidence in feeling that we have seen an end of price increases and in the burdens thereby falling on local authorities. The Government must remember that so long as the percentage remains fixed, if we increase expenditure it automatically leaves a greater amount to be met by the ratepayers, and they are tied from one revaluation year to the next on a relatively fixed valuation basis. This must, therefore, mean increased rates. With that in mind, I trust that adequate answers will be given to the important questions that my hon. Friends have asked.

11.22 p.m.

Mr. Younger: With the leave of the House, I will reply to the points raised in this interesting debate.
We were treated to what I hope the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) will not mind my describing as a piece of real vintage Willie Ross tonight. He complained that the date 16th March had been given instead of 15th March, though he admitted that the difference was in terms of parliamentary rather than "real" time.

Mr. Ross: Not at all.

Mr. Younger: That was a splendid example and we were pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman in such excellent form on his old stamping ground, picking holes in almost everything.

Mr. Ross: I read the details of the order and went to the Library to search through the deliberations for 16th March, but I could find nothing relating to this subject. It was a simple error, but there is no reason why we should not get these things right.

Mr. Younger: I am very impressed indeed—

Mr. Ross: Good.

Mr. Younger: —and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will consider that British Summer Time had something to do with it; but fortunately that need not worry us in future.
Turning to the points made in the debate, if estimates made in previous times have not turned out to be exactly and completely accurate, I accept that that is a normal feature of budgeting and forecasting in all kinds of economic activities. The right hon. Member for Kilmarnock probably will not mind my remarking that if we had an excess in 1970–71 over expenditure for the rate support grant of about 3 per cent.—he used the figure of 3·3 per cent.—then perhaps the order which he introduced in 1969 was too restrictive.

Mr. Ross: It was nothing of the sort.

Mr. Younger: One can be wrong at either end of this calculation. From business experience generally, hon. Members will no doubt agree that it is accepted as normal estimating and forecasting in business that one may be 5 per cent. out in either direction.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) and others asked about the additional special works programme. This matter has been raised with me by several local authorities, and notably by that of Glasgow. It is a perfectly reasonable matter to raise. We have not altered the rate support grant in this respect because the legislation laying down the system of rate support does not allow for alterations to be made to take account of changes in local or central Government policy.
Thus, we have not made an alteration to reflect the extra works programme because it is not open to us to do so under the Statute. However, we have shown our appreciation of the problem and good intentions by, for example, introducing special extra grants for road improvements, and previously these would not have been eligible for grant.

Mr. McElhone: Is the Minister aware that Members of Parliament in Glasgow received a letter from the local authority complaining that the Scottish Office had

not honoured its obligations with regard to measures on public works programmes that he is now talking about? Could he give us an answer to that?

Mr. Younger: Indeed, and my right hon. Friend and I have also had letters from the Treasurer of Glasgow Corporation to the same effect, but I have given the answer which I think is a perfectly complete answer—first, that it is not open to me to alter the rate support grant, and secondly, that money to a greater extent has in fact been given than would have been available under that means. I think, therefore, that within the slightly imperfect machinery that is available to us we have not done badly by those local authorities which have responded so well to the Government's request to help the unemployment situation with extra works. I am grateful to them for what they have done, and I do not think it will result in an undue burden on the ratepayers. The hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) asked some questions about school milk and the rate support grant order. When the figures on this subject were being negotiated with the local authority associations, the medical certification of children had not, in fact, been completed. On the information available at that time it was agreed between the Departments and the local authorities that it seemed likely that about 35,000 children, amounting to 8 per cent. of the over-sevens in the primary schools, were likely to be granted certificates. I accept that that overall figure conceals wide variations between different authorities. This was touched upon by the hon. Member.
This is a relatively much higher estimate than the estimate for England and Wales, but it was based on the Scottish facts as known at that time. There was no attempt to impose any limit—

Mr. Buchan: Nonsense.

Mr. Younger: —on the number of children receiving free school milk on medical grounds by means of a financial limit and this calculation was made on the basis of the best information available at the time the calculations were made.

Mr. Buchan: The hon. Gentleman must know that that is nonsense. It is a purely arbitary figure pulled out of


the hat. He must know that it has no relation to the medical situation.

Mr. Younger: It is not enough for the hon. Member just to make an unsupported and wild statement like that. This was negotiated on the basis of the best available information and that is all one can do.

Mr. Ross: When was that?

Mr. Younger: The figures are available up to November.
As the hon. Gentleman himself said, examination is still going on. Certification is entirely a matter for medical opinion. It is not up to me tonight to go into the merits of this policy; that is for my right hon. Friend and others to do. All the order seeks to do is to reflect the facts of the situation, and if the situation changes it is possible to alter the provision next year, and my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) was absolutely right in observing that when the previous Administration, which the hon. Gentleman supported, cut out free school milk altogether from secondary education, they did not provide any exemptions at all on medical grounds. I should be interested to know whether he believes it to be the case that not one secondary school child needs milk on medical grounds, because I find that difficult to believe.
On the question of fee-paying schools, the hon. Gentleman asked whether the order takes account of the decision to reimpose school fees in Edinburgh.

Mr. Buchan: In Scotland as a whole.

Mr. Younger: Edinburgh is the only place in which this is relevant at the moment. The answer is that it does not take account of this—

Mr. Ross: Why not?

Mr. Younger: I am coming to that. Fees were not reimposed by the end of the negotiations on this order. Again, I emphasise that the negotiations on this order deal with the facts as they were at the time. It is not up to my Department in negotiating the order to take account of policies of that sort. It has to deal with facts, and the facts as available are the basis of the discussions.

Mr. Ross: In the debate last year, the Secretary of State promised us that he would put a new Section into the Education (Scotland) Act specially to enable this to be done this year.

Mr. Younger: One way to intervene is to come in and stop an hon. Member from saying what he wants to say, and the right hon. Gentleman is adept in doing that. I was about to explain that Edinburgh Corporation's proposal to charge fees in three schools as from 1st September, 1972, was submitted to my right hon. Friend on 27th January and he is still considering whether to approve it. If it is approved, the power given by Section 3 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1971, to vary rate support grant will be exercised in any subsequent increase order. That is the answer to the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) asked about the grants available for planning with special reference to Glasgow's comprehensive development areas. I was grateful to the hon. Member and interested in his remarks about the memorandum which we put forward to Glasgow concerning future planning standards in the city. As the hon. Member knows, we are embarking on a detailed study of future standards with the corporation and I am very glad about that. Glasgow, of course, receives direct grant on its planning expenditure. The small increase in the cost of planning is due to the cost being largely loan charges which, as I indicated earlier this evening, have gone down during the period covered by the No. 2 order.
The hon. Member for Gorbals also asked about home helps. I quite agree that more needs to be done concerning the provision of home helps. The problem is lack of staff as much as lack of money. In 1970–71, the last year for which figures are available, social work money was slightly under-spent from what it might have been. This indicates, I think, that the difficulties are on the whole not lack of money but rather lack of staff and lack of facilities in other respects.
The hon. Member also had some interesting points about the provision of social workers. As he will know, the


Social Work Services Group is sponsoring training of social workers. Here again the problem is not lack of money but lack of trained personnel. Last year's rate support grant was, I think, generally agreed to have been generous. Tonight's order increases spending on social work by no less than 6 per cent.
I note with interest that the hon. Member's plea for more money for libraries, but I should stress that local authorities are not allocated money for individual services and that notional allocations, which are based on the local authorities' estimates for libraries in particular, are very small in comparison with expenditure as a whole. Local authorities can, of course, decide whether to spend more if that is the priority on which they particularly want to spend more. Even the notional allocations, however, have doubled between 1970–71 and 1972–73, but it is interesting to note that the figure is only 0·15 per cent. of reckon-able expenditure. This shows that the figure is very small in relation to the whole.

Mr. McElhone: It is my opinion that, particularly in my constituency, there are many women who would be prepared to work as home helps, because their husbands are unemployed and also because so many women are registered as unemployed. I do not accept that there is plenty of money but a shortage of people for the home help service. May I therefore have an assurance from the Under-Secretary that if on checking with the Department of Employment and the employment exchanges in Glasgow I find that sufficient women come forward to the Glasgow local authority to become home helps, he will reassess the position under the order and give Glasgow extra money?

Mr. Younger: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his well-known deep interest in this subject. If he will contact the Department of Employment and the local authority social work department, I shall be glad to receive from him any representations he may like to make and I will try to be helpful where there are difficulties.
The right hon. Gentleman asked what account was taken of free school meals in the calculation affecting school meals. The proportion of free meals to paid

meals which is reflected in the main order was determined last year. An increase order can be made in respect of unforeseen increases in costs but not for increases in the amount of the service provided. Therefore, what changes can be made are rather limited.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the probable out-turn of actual rate demands this year, which we have been awaiting as the assessments are worked through. It appears that the likely increase in rate uptake this year will probably be about 15 per cent. over last year. Any increase in rates is something to be worried about and to be deplored; and 15 per cent. is a figure which rather disturbs me. However, I must compare this with the performance in similar revaluation years. I am glad to be able to tell the House that in this year's revaluation we have achieved a considerable improvement on previous revalution years. In the 1961 revaluation year rates rose by about 19 per cent. In the 1966 revaluation year rates rose by 18 per cent.
The fact that this year the increase has been contained to 15 per cent. reflects great credit on the local authorities, which responded well to our repeated appeals to restrict their increased demands on the rates.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked about a further increase order. He will remember that it has never been the practice to give an undertaking in advance about further increase orders. The movement of wages and prices will be kept under review during the year and my right hon. Friend will consider in due course whether the effect on reckonable expenditure is likely to be substantial.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked how much the formula changes will be worth to Glasgow. The further change proposed in the No. 2 order will, 1 calculate, be worth approximately £1 million of extra needs element per year to Glasgow, although the net gain will be smaller than that because of some loss in the resources element which compensates for it.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked why rate rebate expenditure was rising. The cost of rate rebates depends on the average domestic rate payment. When rates rise, the percentage increase in rebates is bound to be rather higher. The increase does no more than cover


the original estimated uptake of rebates at a somewhat higher cost.
I hope that I have managed to answer all the points which were raised. I am grateful for the obvious interest hon. Members on both sides have taken in this important order. I believe that this is a fair settlement of an annual problem—certainly a problem which comes up quite often—in which we try to reflect the inevitable changes in local authority expenditures in the Government's rate support grant.
I am sure that it will be the wish of the House to pass these orders and thereby to provide for the local authorities another year of successful work with full support from central Government funds through the rate support grant, and I commend the orders to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) Order 1972, dated 7th February 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 14th February, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) (No. 2) Order 1972, dated 7th February 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 14th February, be approved.—[Mr. Younger.]

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Rossi.]

Orders of the Day — INTERNATIONAL COVENANTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

11.41 p.m.

Mr. Peter Archer: Adjournment debates are not usually great parliamentary occasions, but I venture to hope that this debate will not be without its modest influence on Government policy. It is one incident in a long process, a process from international anarchy, from the unfettered licence of national Governments to tyrannise over their subjects with impunity, from the neolithic stage in political responsibility, to the ultimate establishment of international law and order, to the recognition that even

national Governments are not above responsibility for what they do to men and women.
In 1945, the world had seen the consequencies of the abdication by the international community of responsibility for human rights, and those who gathered at San Francisco determined that never again should such tyranny be left unrestrained. On 10th December, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That document set out all that was best in man's political aspirations, but it had no teeth; it provided no remedy for an infringement of its provisions.
This was intentional, for it was intended to be supplemented by a convention which would remedy those defects. At that stage, however, the subject became a shuttlecock in the international power politics, and for more than a decade any further progress was made by regional arrangements. The European Convention on Human Rights was an important step, which has afforded a measure of protection to a number of individuals, and it has registered an effect on the standards of Governments in Western Europe. But it was no substitute for a universal system.
For the next step, the world had to wait until 1966, when, largely by reason of an initiative by the United Kingdom Government, the United Nations adopted the two Covenants which are the subject of this evening's debate.
The implementation of the rights set out in the Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural rights must depend on the economic stage which a country has reached, and all that the Covenant could require is that Governments should make periodical reports on their progress. But the rights under the Civil and Political Covenant, rights like freedom of expression, freedom from arrest and freedom of association, are within the reach of all Governments of good will. This Covenant provides for the establishment of an international committee on human rights which will investigate infringements. It does not command an international police force. It has no system of international bailiffs. In the last resort, it can do no more than report to the international community.
Perhaps our grandchildren will take for granted the existence of an international court of human rights, an institution which, I may say, was regarded in 1948 as a practical possibility in the not-too-distant future. But, until then, the human rights committee provided for in the Civil and Political Covenant, will be the forum where infringements of human rights can be subjected to the focus of international opinion.
The Covenants are expressed to take effect when they have been ratified by 35 member States. To date, 15 States have ratified each of the covenants. The United Kingdom has not. I accept that it is the United Kingdom Government's practice not to undertake international obligations until they are sure they can comply with them, and that is time-honoured and wholly commendable. But it can become the occasion for endless consultation and delay.
Replying to a parliamentary Question I asked on 24th January, the Under-Secretary spoke of the difficulties arising from the concept of privacy. It is true that Article 17 of the Civil and Political Covenant provides that no one shall be subject to arbitrary or unlawful interference, inter alia, with his privacy. But Article 2 of the Covenant says only that the Government concerned shall:
take the necessary steps in accordance with its constitutional processes and the provisions of this Covenant to adopt such legislative or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights recognised in this Covenant.
So it does not mean we must delay ratification until every section of every Statute is on the book. I hope we may hear from the Under-Secretary tonight the Government's view of this and I hope he will not say that it is not possible to ratify these Covenants until a Royal Commission has sat on every obligation contained in each of them.
It will not come as a surprise to the Government to learn that there has been some speculation as to the reasons why they are so reluctant to ratify. A possible explanation is that they are not anxious to invite international attention to their conduct of affairs in Northern Ireland. If that is so, it displays a singular lack of confidence in their case. The Civil and Political Covenant is not a very demanding document, certainly not im-

possibly demanding. Article 4 of that Covenant states that:
In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties hereto may take measures derogating from their obligations under this Covenant …
with certain provisos.
I tried to understand the case advanced by the Secretary of State on 17th and 25th November. I would not indicate my unqualified assent to it but if that were the case he wished to advance, there would be nothing within the framework of this Covenant to prevent him advancing it to the international community. I appreciate also that there is a problem where the Government are answerable internationally for measures which are within the control of a subordinate Government, as at Stormont. Equally, they are answerable in international law for a situation over which they have no effective control, for example in Rhodesia. The international community is not oblivious to the realities if they are stated honestly. But obviously if a Government insist that these are internal matters within their own exclusive jurisdiction and decline to respond to any international inquiries relating to them they cannot at the same time argue that they are not responsible because they are not effectively in control.
If this is the problem, I hope that the Under-Secretary will indicate the Government's attitude, and I hope he will find that the House is not wholly unresponsive and unprepared to make allowances. Meanwhile, many of us are concerned that the United Kingdom, which enjoys an international reputation for leading opinion in human rights matters, may permit that opinion to seep away during the incumbency of the present Government by sheer inaction. Of course, the Under-Secretary will not be oblivious to the terms of Early Day Motion No. 153
Failure to ratify the Human Rights Covenants
which is subscribed to by over 100 hon. Members.
I hope, too, that we shall hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Goronwy Roberts) the official attitude of the Opposition Front Bench on the matter. Many of us are


very grateful for the deep personal concern he displayed for the subject when he was the Minister responsible, and I am personally grateful to him for the encouragement he has given me in these pursuits.
One aspiration that brought some of us into politics was the dream of an international community, resolving its differences by peaceful and lawful means, co-operating in the tasks of peace, caring for the interests of individuals, and protesting when men and women were threatened with tyranny. In the realisation of that aspiration, the running has been made not by national Governments but by non-governmental organisations, such as Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, the International League for the Rights of Man and the Anti-Slavery Society. They have complained from time to time that Governments have dragged their feet. If the United Kingdom Government remain inactive on this matter, they will be condemned not only by those whose rights they may themselves have infringed, but by those elsewhere in the world who will complain to history of their indifference, and their indictment will be:
We were sick and in prison, and ye visited us not.

11.51 p.m.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer), in an excellent speech, based on a lifetime's devoted service to the cause of international co-operation, has raised a matter of fundamental importance, and also of fundamental difficulty. It is one thing to obtain the acceptance of a declaration of human rights and, important as that step is, quite another to secure the acceptance of the procedures and sanctions that alone can convert a declaration into a convention.
I intervene very briefly not only to indicate strong approval of the objectives so eloquently described by my hon. and learned Friend but also to put a specific point to the Minister. The Declaration of Human Rights has been generally accepted. It took a great deal of time and effort to achieve that, and it may well take even longer and even

more devoted effort to secure its general implementation. While we should in no way relax our efforts to secure universal implementation, is not it clear that a good deal can be done on a regional basis? The European Convention on Human Rights provides a clear example. Here we have a number of countries in a fairly homogeneous area which have found it possible to adopt universal standards for regional application. It is at once an experiment and an example. Cannot it provide an impetus to other regions—South America, South-East Asia, possibly Africa? There have been proposals for such regional conventions on the European analogy.
I hope that the Minister can assure us that it remains the Government's policy—bi-partisan consensus has existed on this, and I hope that it will survive—to promote regional arrangements, not as a compromise with the universal objective we all share but as a step towards the world-wide rule of law which my hon. and learned Friend has for so long, and particularly tonight, argued so eloquently.

11.55 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Anthony Kershaw): The hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) has for a long time taken an interest in human rights and has become our authority on them, which does him much credit and for which the House is in his debt. I am very grateful to him for what he said. I am also grateful to the right hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Goronwy Roberts), who has held high office and responsibility in these matters, for being present tonight and for saying a few words.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights were adopted by the General Assembly in December, 1966. There was also an Optional Protocol dealing with the right of individual petition, in particular, which is far-reaching and to which the hon. and learned Member made no specific reference, so I will not go into it in detail. These Covenants seek to make binding in law the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 upon those states which ratify them.
The United Kingdom played a prominent part in drawing up these Covenants, though, like other nations, we had to accept some phrases and phraseology which we thought were not entirely suitable. We signed the Covenants, though not the protocol, in September, 1968. Our obligation is, pending ratification, not to act so as to defeat the purposes of the Covenants, and it is therefore necessary for us to examine them very carefully to ensure that our legislation and that of our dependent territories is in line with the Covenants. Therefore, we have been studying them in an inter-departmental working party, and we have found a number of technical difficulties.
For example, Article 17, dealing with
arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy,
present a difficulty. Our law knows no right to privacy as such expressed in those terms. The Younger Committee is sitting to decide about these things and to make a report about privacy, as I told the hon. and learned Gentleman in answer to a parliamentary Question. I hope that the Committee will report in the next few months. We might be able to see our way more clearly when its report is before us.
Article 20, which also presents difficulty, states:
Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
Our criminal law does not prohibit propaganda of this sort; it is an entirely novel concept. We have had representations from very worthy bodies which are anxious about the ambit of this Article. We have had representations from the International Federation of Journalists and the National Union of Journalists, whose letter dated June last year I have here. The Federation has urged governments that this Article might put editors and journalists in difficulty in certain circumstances of international tension. It has cited the case of Munich in 1938, and of Hungary and Czechoslovakia when its members might have written in such a way that they could have been held to be advocating war. It has asked us therefore not to dream of signing the Article without further consultation with it. It is noticeable that the Swedish Government have reserved their position com-

pletely on this Article. I suppose that some of our more fiery friends in the House might be in a difficulty regarding their advice as to what we should do about South African and Rhodesian problems in this regard.
We have to consider also the legislation of territories for which we are partially or wholly responsible—the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the 18 other dependent territories for which we have responsibility. There is no provision in the Covenants for the automatic exclusion of non-metropolitan territories. We can derogate in regard to certain aspects of the matter, but we are unwilling to do that unless it is absolutely necessary.
Some of these territories are in circumstances very different from our own and could have major difficulty trying to comply with this legislation, if we were to ratify it. For example, the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Covenant enjoins certain obligations about technical assistance which would be very difficult to apply to all territories; it also enjoins equal pay for equal work, not only in Government service, but in the private sector; insists on free primary education, general social security for all, general legal aid for all, a general ban on imprisonment for debt. Frankly, some territories simply could not face up to this standard at present.
The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned Northern Ireland. The legal position is that Stormont has legislative responsibility for certain matters and Her Majesty's Government have an obligation to satisfy themselves that such legislation does not conflict with any international instrument if we ratify it. The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned Article 4. In cases when a state of emergency has been declared one has the right to derogate, but that is not actually the position in Northern Ireland at present, and there would be a complication if we were to introduce it.

Mr. Peter Archer: Is the hon. Member saying that if we were to ratify the Covenant, the situation in Northern Ireland would constitute an infringement of our obligations?

Mr. Kershaw: No. What I am saying is that under Article 4 it is possible to


make a derogation provided that a legal state of emergency has been declared, and a legal state of emergency has not been declared, and therefore Article 4 would not arise in relation to Northern Ireland.
Unfortunately, since U.D.I. the United Kingdom has not been in a position to ensure that covenants are being honoured in Rhodesia and we have entered reservations in respect of Rhodesia when we have signed international instruments since then. On the whole, it is undesirable to sign a treaty or covenant while at the same time making a large number of, or important, derogations from it, if that can be avoided. These are some of the technical difficulties, which are genuine and well founded. I turn to a different aspect of the matter.
As the hon. and learned Gentleman said, 35 countries must ratify for the Covenants to enter into force and so far 15 have done so, including Bulgaria. Iraq. Libya and Syria, whose standard in these freedoms are not necessarily exactly the same as ours. The Covenants rightly insist upon freedom to form trade unions, to leave any country without hindrance, to engage in any scientific research or creative activity. Furthermore, the Civil and Political Rights Covenant includes provision for the establishment of a United Nations Human Rights Committee of 18 elected by the States parties to it whose duty it will be to receive reports from the various countries, to make comments upon them to E.C.O.S.O.C. and the General Assembly.
There is already in existence an almost exactly similar committee which has as its sphere the elimination of racial discrimination. It is called the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. We are not at all satisfied with the performance of that committee. Far from being a body of experts, which it was hoped it would be, it has been a highly political and subjective body dominated until recently by the Communist bloc. It has indulged in unwarranted and ultra vires attacks on States not parties, such as the United States and Israel, while whitewashing its friends whose conduct in relation to the Covenant has been, to say the least, undesirable.
Our experience of this committee gives us no confidence that a similar committee for these covenants would be helpful. It would be far better—and this and previous Governments of this country have put this forward—to appoint a Commissioner for Human Rights who might, by gentle and unspectacular prodding behind the scenes, effect substantial improvements. So far, unfortunately, this project, which has been backed by Governments of both parties in this country, has been blocked and even filibustered in the United Nations. We have not been able to make any progress so far. The situation about the appointment of such a Commissioner does not look very hopeful.
The United Kingdom has taken the lead in human rights and has worked to make real, as opposed to illusory, progress. We are party to 12 international instruments dealing with human rights under the auspices of the United Nations and also to other conventions, not least to the European Convention mentioned by the right hon. Member for Caernarvon, which is certainly more precise than the United Nations covenants and has machinery, which is now activated, for legal enforcement.
We are not dragging our feet in these matters. We just want to get it right before we ratify.

Mr. Archer: I understand what the Minister said about the technical difficulties—while not necessarily agreeing about them—and I endorse what the hon. Member said about the proposal for a United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, but is he saying that even when the technical difficulties are resolved our Government would not propose to ratify these Covenants?

Mr. Kershaw: Not at all. If the technical difficulties could be resolved and we saw that these Covenants would work in the way in which the original Covenant for Europe has worked, I have no doubt that we would wish to ratify them. We have signed and have given our general approval. All that we have to do is to iron out the details. They are important details, but they follow from our signature.
I know that we seem slow in ratifying. We take a lot of trouble about it. But we can reflect that although the price


to be paid is that Britain sometimes incurs the approbrium of not having ratified conventions until long after they are made, at least we are spared the hypocrisy of adopting an international attitude before its implications have been accepted at home.
The hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to adopt those words, which he himself wrote in 1969.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes past Twelve o'clock.